Writing Historical Fiction: I Moved to Sicily to Find a 19th-Century Bandit
PART ONE IN THE HISTORICAL FICTION SERIES: VARSALONA
Castronovo di Sicilia
I showed up in the Piazza del Comune of Castronovo, Sicily, on a warm June morning. I had driven my rented Smart car to the GPS location, and there I was — a non-blending blonde American in front of the most popular coffee bar in town, right next to the town’s city hall. The tiny town had about 1000 inhabitants, and from the look of it, most of them were 70-plus.
Just 10 feet away on the other side of the little brick street sat three old Sicilian men on a bench, like permanent fixtures, with their driving caps and canes. They stared directly at me without blinking. I pretended to be looking at my phone, pretending to be finding my way, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. Castronovo wasn’t a place where someone accidentally got lost and stranded. You would only end up here if it were your destination.
I had just driven an hour and a half from Palermo along two-lane winding roads through Sicilian countryside. There were no rest stops or gas stations on the way. There were very few signs to indicate if you were on the right path. Even in Palermo, where I gassed the car before beginning on my adventure, I had not found one person that spoke English. So, I did not just end up here. I was here for a reason.
Six months before, I had returned to Denver after living in Italy for several years, and I wasn’t happy to be there; actually, I was searching for a reason to be there. A friend and I stopped in a jewelry store and struck up a conversation with the man behind the jewelry case. He mentioned that his father was Sicilian, and when I said I had just moved back from Italy, he asked if I would like to meet him. He led us to a cramped back office crowded with antiques, guns, and one large man who towered over us when he stood up to shake our hands.
We all laughed while he battered me with questions about Italy. Then, he handed me an Italian book and asked me if I could read it. I opened to the first page and started to read aloud the first few sentences in English, and then he stopped me and said, “Jesus Christ, you’re fluent!” I looked at him and said, “Of course I am. I lived in Italy.” And he repeated, “But you are really fluent!” Then he said the words that would change my life for the next several years, “Could you translate that book for me?”
And that was how I came to find myself in Sicily six months later; I had translated the book and traveled there once already with an entourage surrounding me. I had met the bandit book author, and I had met the Mayor of the town where the bandit was born. I had visited sites described in the book about the bandit Francesco Paolo Varsalona’s reign in Sicily.
But this time, I was alone, without the Italian author, and without my friend from the American Embassy in Rome who had accompanied me the first time for “security.” I was there to see what more I could dig up, and I planned to meet with the young and modern Vice-Mayor who had been kind enough to help me with some research via email. I had let him know that I was arriving for a few days and would like to meet with him, and he had responded that whenever I arrived, I should just come to the Comune (City Hall), and he would be there. Little did I know that just that morning, literally moments before I had arrived, he had been elected Mayor of this tiny town.
When I stepped out of the car, I noticed little pieces of confetti labeled “Onorato” lying around the streets, curbs, and sidewalks. Onorato means honored in Italian, and I thought there must have been a special celebration that day to honor someone. Instead, the citizens used the confetti to celebrate my friend’s election — his name was Francesco Onorato.
So, no one was happier than me to find out that the sweet and helpful former Vice-Mayor was now the most important person in town. He was excited to see me again and explained that the townspeople were hoping that my arrival meant that something good would happen — maybe a movie about the bandit? He invited me to his inauguration and his three-year-old daughter’s birthday party. He presented me as an American sent to research the famous Varsalona.
People sidled over to me and shared their opinions, good and bad, about my protagonist. It was impressive that an outlaw from over 100 years ago still stirred up such strong pride, disgust, humor, and fear. Everyone seemed to have a story or a tie to the bandit. I could hardly write it all down because the stories came to me as I passed on the street, stood stirring an espresso in the café bar, and while drinking terrible wine at a toddler’s party in the countryside while balancing a plate of sausage in the other hand. I dropped into this tiny town and became a VIP overnight.
