Diary of Giovanni Vener by Michael Pedretti

It's 1899. John Venner, born Giovanni Vener, has just been committed to the Vernon County Insane Asylum. When one of the nurses hands him a pen and a pad, his suppressed need to write surfaces and he scribbles about his experience the night before. By the third day he is making diary entries addressed to Maddie, the love of his life who had died just a few months earlier. John looks back at a life that was good to him, but one that never allowed him the leisure time to create, to fulfill his desire to put in writing his insights and thoughts. But now all responsibility had been taken away and he can reflect on his life - his life as a budding artist, immigrant, farmer, husband and father, and community leader. John tells us of his journey to America, his struggles to obtain and maintain his farms, re-experiencing his past, and talking sweet thoughts to Maddie, his wife. He tells Maddie (and us) why he emigrated from Campodolcino in northern Italy to Bad Ax, Wisconsin. He relives with her many moments from their life and their struggles to eke a living out of the bluffs and coulees in Genoa, a small Wisconsin town located on the banks of the Mississippi river. Many entries are bold and naked love songs to Maddie. He also tells her of his days struggling with reality since her death. Giovanni is left an original copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and develops a love hate relationship with Whitman and his poems. Homer appears in a dream and challenges him to write the great modern epic that will straighten out the errors that he, Virgil, Milton and Dante made. They celebrated war & quest, chauvinism, evil & despair, and fear. Homer challenges John to set it right –to tell the story of family, gentleness, creativity, charity, and peace. John believes he is too old for that, so he concentrates on making diary entries that depict his life with Maddie as fruitful immigrants each day making life a little better for themselves, their neighbors and the world.