The Aunties
Irene Toomey
Type: Beta project
Genre: Historical fiction
Word count: 73,000
The Aunties follows the Galiano family across six decades of American life — from a tailor’s shop to a wedding in 1965. Narrated by Lena, the practical eldest daughter of an Italian immigrant, it’s a story about four sisters, one unforgettable Irish nurse, two world wars, Sunday dinners, and the stubborn, funny, complicated love that holds a family together.
The Aunties follows the Galiano family across six decades of American life, from a tailor’s shop on Salem Street in Boston’s North End to a wedding in Medford in 1965. Narrated by Lena, the practical eldest daughter of Italian immigrant tailor Giovanni Galiano, it’s the story of four sisters — Maria, who chases a bigger life and finds love on a Caribbean cruise; Sofia, whose life ends too soon; Anna, who loves and loses; and Lena herself, who holds it all together. Based on the author’s own family history.
Into this Italian family comes Peggy Murphy — an Irish nurse with a gift for chaos and a talent for winning hearts. Spanning the Great Depression, two world wars, and the Korean War, The Aunties is a story about the stubborn, funny, complicated love that holds a family together through everything.
Irene Toomey is a retired nurse with an MBA and a published author of nursing journal articles. She grew up in the Boston area and draws on her own family history in her debut novel The Aunties — including her father’s experience as a physician in a MASH unit during the Korean War. The novel is dedicated to her aunts, who built their lives stitch by stitch and taught her that the strongest seams are the ones nobody sees. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband.
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