Kiss Carlo is the story of the prosperous, working class Saveri family of Philadelphia, whose lives and fortunes are forever changed by a telegram, and the nephew who delivers it. The Saveris have three sons, now decorated veterans, who returned home to the family cab company in 1946 to resume life as it was before they left. Their beloved orphan nephew and cousin, Frankie Castone, 30, who has lived with them since he was a boy, also returned from the war, without a medal, to his job as a hack and his room in the basement.While the boys were away, their father installed a Western Union Telegram office in the garage to make extra money, but also so his wife might be the first to hear of any news of her sons from overseas.Hortense Mooney, the 60ish black dispatch operator, learned how to send and receive telegrams, and is now in charge of them as well as the dispatch of the cars. One morning, a telegram arrives that requires a pre-dawn drive to Roseto, a town 60 miles northeast of Philadelphia bearing bad news for the small Italian American village. When Frankie arrives in Roseto as the sun rises, he has an epiphany, one that will change the course of his life, the Saveri family's, Hortense Mooney's, and the people of Roseto, including the despondent young widow Mamie Confalone, the town mayor Giorgio Giaquinto, and his daughter Rosa.Kiss Carlo is a novel about the power of family secrets, the triumph of true love over grief, and the guts it takes to leave one life and take a risk to start over again for a piece of the American dream.