NATURAL VENUS by Steve Cirrone immediately pulls readers into the sordid and hilarious childhood of author Steve Cirrone as he struggles with self-identity against the backdrop of Mother, and her very Italian family living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. With dynamic language and realistic, from-the-hip dialogue, Cirrone shows us that there is a machine of existence that at times pushes us and at other times pulls us through the muck of life, and, for good or for bad, Mother often turns the crank.