This story by T. C. Boyle is a fictional account of the founding of California’s Forestiere Underground Gardens by an Italian immigrant in the early 1900s. The immigrant is initially disheartened to find that 70 acres of land he bought by mail order is too dry and hard to farm. He survives by working as a day laborer on other farms and, spurred on by a love interest, hand digs a subterranean mansion in his spare time. When the woman rejects him, he keeps on digging. Themes include faith in oneself, self-sufficiency, infatuation, appearance, perseverance, vision.
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