Welcome Rain Publishers
Welcome Rain is an independent general trade publisher concentrating on memoirs, history and biography. Now in our twenty-sixth year, Welcome Rain consistently offers a forum for classics of literature alongside the work of promising writers and some that have slipped into obscurity.
While the primary purpose of our website is to present new and noteworthy, forthcoming, and active titles in our backlist, we have also built a “Library” to house previously published Welcome Rain books that we are particularly fond of. Although these titles are no longer available directly from us, if you see something you fancy, copies are usually available from resellers.
Spirito, Vento e Acqua
SPIRITO, VENTO e ACQUA is the Italian-language version of SPIRIT, WIND & WATER: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE JACUZZI FAMILY by Remo Jacuzzi, the epic saga of the astonishingly enterprising Italian immigrant family–thirteen brothers and sisters and their many descendants whose inventions transformed America. Remo writes, “For me a Jacuzzi is a person, not a machine. A Jacuzzi is a member of my family. ” While they are a household name mainly for their invention of hydrotherapy for home use, during the last century the family revolutionized the airplane industry and remade the lives of rural Americans with their deep-water, immersible injector water pumps. Along the way, they also created a steam-driven windmill system for defrosting crops, a silkworm farm, a wine-making empire (Cline Cellars), a line of PT boats, and dozens of other entrepreneurial ventures.
A Monk Swimming
Malachy McCourt was already famous as an actor, saloon-keeper, and late-night television personality when ANGELA’S ASHES was published. Brother Frank’s book introduced the incorrigible, indomitable young Malachy to a worldwide audience that was charmed, and clamored for more. Frank’s book was a hard act to follow, but Malachy’s delightful memoir, which picked up where ANGELA’S ASHES left off, won critical acclaim and commercial success.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in the lanes of Limerick, Malachy returned to New York at age 20. He had a taste for adventure, and his madcap, manic life ricocheted from higher highs to lower lows as he tried selling Bibles at the beach on Fire Island and smuggling gold in Zurich. He entertained a voracious public on the stage as a member of the Irish Players and was a semi-regular on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. He also parlayed his gifts of gab and conviviality into an ownership position at Malachy’s—the first singles’ bar—located near the Barbizon Hotel for women, whose glamorous residents frequently repaired to Malachy’s for a tipple and flirt.
Peter Quinn, Malachy’s longtime friend and sometimes collaborator, has written a brilliant new Introduction for this Welcome Rain edition; and Malachy recounts an incident that won him a gentle rebuke from Mary Higgins Clark in his Afterword.
A MONK SWIMMING is now also available as an e-book from Open Road.
From the Inside Out
Harrowing Escapes from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
Erik Ronningen was on the 71st floor of the North Tower on September 11, 2001 when American Airlines Flight 767 struck the building. After an incredible, even miraculous journey down through the acrid, smoke-filled building lit by occasional fireballs, Erik tried to get to the Security Command Center in the South Tower to aid in the evacuation. Unable to do so, he was the last person to make it out of the South Tower alive.
Here is the story of his harrowing escape interwoven with the accounts of fourteen others who were lucky enough to be able to recount them.
Altogether, these accounts document the bravery and heroism, selflessness and generosity demonstrated by hundreds of people when their normal everyday lives were suddenly plunged into a fiery scramble for survival.
The astonishing photograph on the cover of this book was taken by survivor Jim Usher as he lay on the concrete outside the WTC losing consciousness, so his family could see what he saw during what he thought were the last moments of his life. And yes, that flag was really there! This photograph has never before been made public.
E-book available from Open Road and a paperback edition including an Afterword by the author forthcoming in 2026.
The Way Women Are
Transformative Opinions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg–Second Edition
Edited by Cathy Cambron
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent a lifetime defying notions about “the way women are.” This collection of her legal writings illuminates the intellect, humor, and toughness that made “the Notorious R.B.G.” a cultural icon as well as a profoundly influential jurist.
This second edition has been updated to include dissents from Justice Ginsburg’s final days on the Court. The book begins with her passionate briefs as an advocate for women’s rights in the 1970s, leading to a series of Court decisions that demolished barriers to gender equality. Transformative majority opinions, including United States v. Virginia (1996), follow, along with famous dissents such as Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (2007), Shelby County v. Holder (2013), and recently Little Sisters of the Poor (2020)—a case that had Justice Ginsburg, true to her indomitable character, participating in oral argument from her hospital bed.
Many of these writings are accompanied by Ginsburg’s statements during oral argument and bench announcements of decisions, which framed the issues in a way more understandable to the public. Also included is an introduction summarizing Ginsburg’s life story and legacy, as well as explanatory notes for each case that provide context, demystify the arguments, and make these writings accessible to a nonlegal audience.
Also available as an e-book from Open Road.
The Wages of Expectation
A Biography of Edward Dahlberg
The flamboyant and irascible Edward Dahlberg (1900-1977) wrote twenty
books including, most notably, BECAUSE I WAS FLESH, his autobiographical masterpiece, which Alfred Kazin called “A work of extraordinary honesty, eloquence, and power.” According to Sir Herbert Read: “A great achievement. The magnificent portrait of the author’s mother is as relentless, as detailed, as loving as a late Rembrandt.”
Consigned to the Jewish Orphan Home in Cleveland, Ohio, by his mother, a lady barber, Dahlberg’s vagabond life took him to Berkeley, California, expatriate Paris, in the late twenties, and Greenwich Village; but always back to Kansas City, home of the Star Lady Barbershop, and his mother.
Dahlberg’s stormy literary career spanned five decades and brought him into contact (and conflict) with many of the luminaries of his time, including D.H. Lawrence (who wrote the Introduction to his first novel, BOTTOM DOGS), Granville Hicks, Sidney Hook, James T. Farrell, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Graves, Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, Alice Neel, and Allen Ginsberg.
Charles DeFanti was a close friend of Edward Dahlberg for the last four years of Dahlberg’s life, conducted hundreds of interviews for this book and has written an Afterword for this edition.