Paperback: A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.
From the age of four, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children in 1892, she lost one along the way. Helene’s youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.
Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy’s boot - a mountainous and undiscovered land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty - filled with badlands-like hills, ancient caves, and fertile valleys with silver-tinged olive trees, whose isolation is matched by its forlorn, incredible beauty.
Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene’s dogged search, aided by a few lucky - even miraculous - breaks and a group of colourful local characters, led her to the truth.
Yes, the family tales she had heard were true: There had been a murder in Helene’s family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim were not who she thought they were.
In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization - she was not who she thought she was, either, sparking an upheaval of her own identity and sense of history.
Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera (2017) is a deeply researched and reported literary account about one family's hidden secrets. It is also a powerful and timeless story of immigration and motherhood - a profound testament to how far one woman would go in search of a better life in America, not only for herself, but for her children and the preservation of her family.
About the author: Helene Stapinski is the author of Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History, which recounts her family’s criminal history, and Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music, which chronicles her years playing drums in a rock band in Manhattan. She has written extensively for the New York Times as well as for New York magazine, Salon, Travel & Leisure, and dozens of other publications and essay collections. On the documentary based on Five-Finger Discount, she has worked as a producer and writer. Stapinski has been a radio newscaster in Alaska; has appeared on National Public Radio; was a featured performer with The Moth; has lectured at her alma mater, Columbia University; and has taught at Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
Author's note: Vita was illiterate, so she left no diaries or letters, only stories passed down through the generations. Miraculously, the six-hundred-page criminal file exists and provided me with vivid details of what transpired more than a century ago. My historical re-creations are based on those pages, on archival materials, interviews with historians, residents and experts on the time period, in addition to the work of those writers who came and researched before me.
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