Oh, Beautiful

In his memoir Oh, Beautiful (2010), a narrative that spans a hundred years and three generations, American author John Paul Godges details the immigration of his grandparents, the assimilation of his parents, and his siblings' efforts to navigate the turmoil of the last half of the 20th century. "This ambitious book succeeds in negotiating the balance between individual and community, telling the engrossing story of an individual family within the greater society of America" (Kirkus Reviews).

The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, "Newcomers," details the immigration of Godges’s maternal grandfather from Italy to America. The son of an Italian migrant worker, Serafino Di Gregorio defies his father, moving to America in the 1910s with his wife, Maria. They obtain company housing provided by the Iowa cement quarry where Serafino gains employment. Over the next few years, Serafino and Maria have five daughters and one son: Ida, Leonata, Bice, Mafalda, Algisa, and Raffaello. In the Italian immigrant community in which they reside, many of the customs of the old country persist.

Born in 1925, Ida is Godges's mother. She experiences a challenging upbringing during the Great Depression while developing many survival skills as she faces ethnic prejudice, language barriers, economic hardship, and intolerance toward her family's Roman Catholic faith. Later in her youth, her family relocates from their tight-knit immigrant community to a wealthier predominantly non-immigrant neighborhood. There, the family struggles to assimilate amid anti-Italian attitudes among their neighbors. When Ida reaches adulthood, she moves away from her all-American small town to California.



Godges shifts the narrative to describe the chaotic upbringing of his father, Josef Godzisz. Born in Poland in 1924, Godges's family escapes the spread of Nazism in 1935, settling in an extremely poor Polish neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. Throughout his tough childhood and teenage years, Josef clings to his Catholic faith to survive. As soon as he turns seventeen, Josef joins the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal work program designed for unemployed, unmarried men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight. His participation in this program with Americans from all origins and levels of society gives him great love and respect for his adopted country. He begins to use an Americanized version of his name, Joseph Godges. Joseph earns his citizenship by enlisting in the US Marine Corps during World War II, fighting in the Pacific Theater in Guam. In Los Angeles in 1948, Josef meets Ida. Within a year, they are married.

Part 2 is titled "Assimilation." With the help of a G.I. loan, Joseph and Ida purchase a home where they raise their six children: Stan, Genie, Geri, Joe, Mary Jo, and John. Stan is forced to grow up fast at the age of 12 when Joseph loses his job. Eventually, Joseph finds another job in Redondo Beach where the family becomes actively involved with a tight-knit Catholic Church community.

As the Vietnam draft looms, Stan is horrified. Meanwhile, Genie is entranced with the hippie lifestyle. Tragedy strikes when Geri is diagnosed with an incurable mental illness. The emotional turmoil becomes too much for Joseph and Ida, who separate for a brief time. Ida returns to Iowa while Joseph returns to Michigan. Meanwhile, both parents struggle to find proper care for Geri in either state.



In Part 3, "Going Separate Ways," hoping to obtain a student deferment from the draft, Stan works hard in school and is admitted to Loyola-Marymount, a Catholic university in Los Angeles. Though eager to avoid the draft himself, Stan is troubled by the anti-war campus protesters. For Genie, who also enrolls at Loyola-Marymount, the campus protests don't go far enough. Meanwhile, Genie begins to date one of her agnostic English professors. However, when the family learns that she has moved in with him, Joseph excommunicates her from the family.

In the 1980s, Mary becomes a prominent surfer and radio DJ in Southern California. Godges, meanwhile, struggles to square his Catholic beliefs with his sexual orientation as a gay man. He moves to San Francisco where he becomes an active gay rights activist and a volunteer who helps AIDS victims cope with their disease. Joe has far different pursuits, excelling at baseball and graduating with a US Army master's degree in physical therapy from Baylor University. Joe marries young but divorces young as well. He suffers a deep depression which his father helps guide him through. Because he is divorced, he cannot remarry within the Catholic Church. When Joe does remarry outside the church in 1994, Joseph boycotts the wedding. A year later, Ida leaves Joseph once again, remaking herself at the age of seventy and obtaining a job at United Airlines. They reunite only after she feels that she is her own woman.

In Part 4, "The Anniversary," the children host a 50th wedding anniversary party for Joseph and Ida.



Oh, Beautiful is a sweeping tale about how families and nations heal amid great turmoil.