Latest news with #C.A.Sadlowski
Chicago Tribune
01-08-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
A new memoir turns surviving Cleveland childhood into a triumph of spirit.
What do a deathbed, a dentist's drill and a bottle of Olde English furniture polish have in common? According to author C. A. Sadlowski, everything. In her latest book, 'The Hanging Branch Club: A Cleveland Time Capsule,' Sadlowski digs deep into the cluttered attic of mid-20th-century memory, dusts off the ridiculous and makes it radiantly relatable. Part memoir, part confession and all heart, 'The Hanging Branch Club' unspools the early life of a tall, smart-mouthed Polish Catholic girl growing up in a neighborhood where the rules were unspoken but ironclad. Unless, of course, you wrote them down yourself — which Hope Sarnecki did and thus was born the Hanging Branch Club, a survival pact for her and her siblings to navigate their formidable mother, an ever-changing cast of oddball relatives and the challenges of growing up with too few bras and too many confessions. 'It's my love letter to an unfiltered Cleveland,' Sadlowski explains. 'To the women who ruled with wooden spoons, the back porches where secrets were spilled and the kids who made sense of it all by making up clubs, songs and clever exits.' From ducking the wrath of a mother wielding a broom to inventing saintlike patience at piano lessons with Miss Birch, Sadlowski's Hope is the kind of narrator who finds wisdom in the weeds of her grandmother's garden and rebellion in the back seat of a blue Ford coupe. And just when you're laughing, she lands a moment so poignant you'll stop to underline it. 'I laughed out loud. Then I cried. Then I called my mom,' said one early reader. 'This book brought it all back — the smells, the fears, the family code of silence — and made me fall in love with childhood all over again.' Whether you were raised Polish Catholic or not, if you've ever tried to dodge your mom's mood swings, faced off with a school nun or thought about throwing a sibling under the bus to survive, 'The Hanging Branch Club' is for you.
Chicago Tribune
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Meet the nurses who survived starched skirts and Sister Gregory
C. A. Sadlowski's St. Trudy's School of Nursing pulls back the curtain on the real-life trials, triumphs and truly bizarre realities of student nurses in the 1960s, a time when the nursing profession was cloaked in starched uniforms, strict conduct codes and the looming authority of nun-run institutions. Set in the fictional halls of St. Gertrude's Hospital School of Nursing, affectionately but forbiddenly nicknamed 'St. Trudy's,' Sadlowski's memoir-style novel tracks the bumpy, absurd and ultimately uplifting journey of Hope Sarnecki, a wide-eyed freshman from Cleveland with nothing but a scholarship and a shaky grasp on anatomy. With a voice that's part dry wit, part wounded heart and all real, Hope leads readers through bed baths, rectal thermometer mishaps, explosive dehiscence wounds, pediatric heartbreaks and, yes, a 3.2-beer-fueled night at 'The Libido Lounge.' The cast of characters, from the quietly rebellious Aggie Vespey to the smirking, steel-haired Miss Burns, are as vivid as the chemical burns from cleaning agents in the charity ward. 'It's not 'Grey's Anatomy.' It's grayer, grittier and funnier,' says the author. 'This was a time when nursing students were expected to be nuns in disguise: celibate, cheerful and tough as nails. I had to tell this story with all the humor and heartbreak intact.' Sadlowski doesn't shy away from tough subjects. The book captures the silent pain of racial inequality, the trauma of pediatric oncology and the emotional minefields of growing up female in a world that often expects obedience over opinion. But what stands out most is the camaraderie, the late-night whispering, the practical jokes and the group smoke breaks between breakdowns. 'St. Trudy's School of Nursing' is as much about friendship as it is about medicine. Readers who loved 'Call the Midwife' or 'The Bell Jar' will find themselves laughing and crying in equal measure. 'St. Trudy's School of Nursing' is published by Callaghan Publications and is now available in paperback and e-book format. To request an interview with the author or a review copy, visit her website or send her an email.
