Stella Mia (39 page)

In Chapter 14 (“Furia dell' Etna”) I mention that Mount Etna was erupting. I exercised creative license here since Mount Etna did not have any eruptions in 1969.

 

In Chapter 17 (“Panarea and Filicudi”) I mention that there is no electricity in Filicudi. This was true in 1969, when the story took place. However, electricity did come to the island in 1986.

 

 

I often have more than one inspiration for writing my novels. For
Stella Mia
, I knew I wanted to set most of the book in Sicily. I also wanted to capture some of the mysticism that pervades Sicily. I thought it would be interesting to have a character who sang Sicilian folk songs and who also read people's fortunes. So that was one inspiration. My other inspiration was my father's grapevine. I had told my editor about the grapevine my father had planted when he and my mother bought my childhood home in Astoria, Queens, New York. In my family, we were all very proud of the grapevine my father had planted in our small concrete backyard. Some people thought the grapevine would never grow, but it did, and it made our tiny city backyard look so beautiful. The year that my father had cancer, the grapevine inexplicably didn't grow as lush as it had the previous years. And after my father died, the grapevine all but died as well. Of course, my family and I couldn't help seeing the irony, especially since my father had planted the grapevine and loved it so much. About fifteen or so years later, sometime after my mother had sold the house, I was visiting our old next-door neighbor and was talking to her in her yard, which faced the yard of my childhood home. I was surprised to see that my father's grapevine was growing again. My mother had tried to replant the grapevine with an offshoot of a grapevine she had received from a friend. But we never got to see if the grapevine would take hold and grow to be the lush vine my father's had been, since my mother had sold the house. Needless to say, I was very moved when I saw the grapevine had grown back and was on its way to looking as beautiful as the one my father had planted. In high school, I had written a college application essay that centered on my father's grapevine, and I always knew that someday I wanted to work it into a novel. When my editor heard the story of my father's grapevine, he, too, felt I should try and work it into my next novel.

 

 

I made up the words for the song “Stella Mia,” but I got the idea for Sarina's singing the song to Julia when she was a baby because a few years ago I learned that my father used to sing to me a lot when I was a baby as he was rocking me to sleep. My father died when I was sixteen, and I had never heard before that he sang to me when I was a baby. My brother told me my father was always singing, and later I did remember him singing a song or two, but I had no idea he sang to me as well when I was a baby. So when I knew I wanted to write about a woman whose mother had left her, the idea came to me that Julia's mother, Sarina, sang her the same song, “Stella Mia,” over and over. And the song is one of the few things Julia has to remember her mother by. Songs and music can be very powerful since we often attach a memory, milestone, or other significant life event to them. Every time we hear the song, inevitably the memories associated with that song come to mind. For Julia, the song “Stella Mia” still connects her to the mother who left her. For Sarina, the song at first reminds her of her little sister, Carlotta, whom she used to sing the song to. But later, when Carlo calls Sarina his
“stella mia,”
the song and phrase then remind her of the love she shared with Carlo. In
Stella Mia
, I do mention a song that is tied to a milestone in my life. The song that Julia mentions she and her father danced to at her wedding, Vittorio Merlo's “Piccolo Fiore,” was the same song I danced to at my wedding with my older brother Anthony.

 

 

I learned from many of my readers that the scenes that took place in Italy in both
Bella Fortuna
and
Carissima
really resonated with them. And as an author, I especially enjoyed writing those scenes that were set in Italy, so I decided to make the main setting for
Stella Mia
Italy and just set a small portion of the book in Astoria, New York. I like to challenge myself as a writer and shake things up a bit from book to book.

 

 

I was fortunate enough to have parents who didn't hit me as a form of punishment when I was a child; however, I knew other kids who were repeatedly physically abused. I also remember the mother of an ex-boyfriend of mine recounting the horrible physical abuse she had suffered as a child at her father's hands. With my friends whose parents had abused them, I saw the effect the abuse had on their lives as they got older. It eroded their self-esteem, and many times caused them to treat others poorly, whether it was through verbal or physical abuse. In Sarina's case, I believe her father's vicious abuse of her ultimately played a role in why she chose not to return to Julia. She never trusted fully that she could be a good mother and avoid becoming the monster her father was. Likewise, she was never fully confident in Carlo's love for her and was easily made insecure when Gemma came into the picture. It was almost as if she didn't believe she deserved to have someone love her the way Carlo did because her father had never loved her.

 

 

Though Paulie could be quite an annoying character with his nosiness and crude habits, as we saw in
Bella Fortuna
and
Carissima
, he was also an unforgettable character for those same traits that made him so irksome. I've always believed there is more than meets the eye with most people. We often forget that people have histories and that the events that have happened in their lives make them who they are today. I wanted readers to understand better why Paulie is the way he is, particularly where his need to know everyone's business is concerned. In
Stella Mia,
when we see that he has been lonely since Sarina left him and Julia, we can understand why he might try to distract himself from his problems and loneliness by focusing instead on his neighbors' affairs. I also thought it would be fun for readers to encounter him again in
Stella Mia,
and to learn more about him, especially from the perspective of someone who loves him—his daughter, Julia.

 

 

I think some of the most fascinating relationships are familial ones. I'm close to my family, and I do enjoy writing about families and their interactions with one another, whether they are good or bad. Families are quite complex, and the way we act with some of our family members might not necessarily be the same way we would behave in some of our other relationships. I love the multifaceted complexity of the bonds that hold family members together and when something happens that tests those bonds or breaks them.

 

 

When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to get regular tarot card readings from a fortune-teller. My brother had bought a deck of tarot cards, and my sister and I used to practice giving each other readings. I haven't had a reading since my twenties when a coworker and friend gave me one. Though I was very intrigued by tarot cards when I was younger, I don't believe in them now. I also didn't like how for a while you carried in your mind the reading you received and were waiting to see if what transpired in your life matched the reading. I don't believe we are intended to know the roadmap in our future, and we shouldn't be living our lives trying to figure out what is in store for us. But I still do love the mysticism and allure that tarot cards hold, even though I've given up on using them to tell me my future or to help throw some light on whatever obstacles I might be facing currently in my life.

 

 

I haven't completely formulated the idea for my fourth book, but I do know it will be completely set in Italy, and pastries will figure prominently in the novel. Sorry to be mysterious, but that's all I can predict for the future right now!