The Potato in Clancy's Attic

Imagine opening an old attic trunk and finding a stack of love letters with two cents postage on the envelopes, a tear-stained diary, and a family biography, some of which may shock or dismay, but could well endear your ancestors to you in new and poignant ways.

Marlowe's intriguing new memoir, "The Potato in Clancy's Attic," a sequel to "Secrets of an Old Man's Girlhood" ("both heartbreaking and hilarious..." -"Kirkus Reviews"), opens with a series of love letters between David Newton, a Protestant traveling salesman, and Kathryn Clancy, a Catholic secretary living in 1907 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Despite their families' zealous attempts to keep them apart, David and Kathryn struggle to find a way to have a family of their own.

The diary of Emily Clancy, a trained concert pianist reluctantly resigned to a life of spinsterhood, reveals family secrets as well as the unexpected fate that awaits Emily herself.

Terrence Clancy, the family philosopher, traces the clan's ancestry back to the 1850 Potato Famine, and concludes: "The years have passed with the speed of a runaway freight train...all things exist, side by side, from...newly-minted infant...to...old man..., as if the two extremes are still happening in me at the same time."