From award-winning writer Joanne de Simone, her nonfiction narrative story, Songs from Under the El, is a love letter to her family-a nostalgic look at her heritage that began at Ellis Island, spanning almost a century. Her memoir is filled with anecdotes about who came before, with stories about life in the early to mid 1900s, and with the hope that all who follow in this tapestry of laughter and tears will come to cherish it as much as its creator.