Seeds of the Pomegranate: A Novel

A gritty story of a woman learning to survive in 20th century Gangland New York

In early 20th-century Sicily, noblewoman Mimi Inglese, a talented painter, dreams of escaping the rigid expectations of her class by gaining admission to the Palermo Art Academy. But when she contracts tuberculosis, her ambitions are shattered. With the Sicilian nobility in decline, she and her family leave for New York City in search of a fresh start. 

Instead of opportunity, Mimi is pulled into the dark underbelly of city life and her father’s money laundering scheme. When he is sent to prison, desperation forces her to put her artistic talent to a new use— counterfeiting $5 bills to keep her family from starvation and, perhaps, to one day reclaim her dream of painting. But as Gangland violence escalates and tragedy strikes, Mimi must summon the courage to flee before she is trapped forever in a life she never wanted.

About Suzanne Uttaro Samuels

Suzanne Uttaro Samuels’ award-winning stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and print and online literary magazines. Seeds of the Pomegranate is her debut novel. Suzanne was a finalist in the Women Fiction Writers Association’s Rising Star contest and the Historical Novel Society’s First Pages competition. Her work won notable recognition in the Thomas Wolfe Prize for Fiction. The prequel to Seeds, The Orphans’ Wheel, set during the tumultuous 19th-century Italian Wars of Independence, is forthcoming from Sibylline Press. A lifelong resident of New York City, Suzanne now resides in the Adirondack Mountains.

Praise for Seeds of the Pomegranate: A Novel

“Over the course of this novel, the author vividly illustrates the sociopolitical distance that separates Palermo and New York; the former is effectively depicted as a stage of vanishing traditions and cultural mores, while the latter is shown to be a place of both unlimited opportunity and moral squalor. Mimi is a memorable protagonist; although her disease is all but a death sentence, she’s still willing to take extraordinary risks to take full advantage of whatever time she has left. Samuels’ prose is straightforward and unadorned but impressively precise, and the tale she unspools offers remarkably nuanced ethical complexity.

A riveting and intelligent novel with a powerful message.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“In Samuels’s impressive debut, an artist reckons with illness and loss while pursuing her career in early 1900s Sicily and New York City.”

—Publisher’s Weekly