"In her brilliant book Truth or Dare, the poet, philosopher-feminist Starhawk, explores the emerging feminine voice and its language of feeling after two thousand years of authoritarian patriarchy, as well as the terrors that needed to be faced and conquered after generations of silence and isolation.  In the Chapter "Finding a Voice: Breaking the Censor's Silence” Starhawk writes, "The powerful weapon of the Censor is to deny actual events and paralyze us so eventually we forget or repress what happens." [i] The resulting loss is immeasurable, especially when the censor has been internalized as it has been in traditional cultures. If we are never told about an ancestor, who may have broken with convention, or broken the rules or laws of their time, or as in the case of Unto the Daughters been murdered by her brothers, we are denied a greater understanding of ourselves and our true history. 

Families share patterns, but when we are kept from the truth of our family patterns, as a result of repression, shame and authoritarian rule, we subtly internalize a self hate and a tendency to perpetuate the same. "To be silenced is to be kept isolated...Breaking our silence releases us. When others know the worst about us, and accept us, we can believe we are truly valued. "[ii] Truth or Dare

Karen Tintori dared to search for and reveal the truth of her family’s and her own story in Unto the Daughters, a powerfully written memoir of discovery and recreation of her lost ancestor, Francesca Costa, who was erased from her family’s history after being brutally murdered by her brothers and discarded in the waters off Belle Isle in the Detroit River in 1919. The author, Karen, whose very act of uncovering the truth and publicly sharing it, calls forth the power of story telling to heal our past and ourselves also tells us her own story and struggle, as a Sicilian American daughter and writer, who despite being raised in contemporary America, would lose connection with her disapproving relations."

So begins Louisa Calio's thoughtful, well-researched exploration of scapegoating, secrets, silences in relationship to the book of my heart, the story of my great-aunt Francesca, a woman who had been lost to history -- a scapegoat. I invite you to read the entirety of her insightful and important essay at Louisa Calio LinkedIn. She has much to share.

I am deeply honored by Louisa's conclusion to her thoughtful and well-researched essay:

"By Tintori’s courageous act of commitment to recreate Frances’ tale, we witness a movement from power over and its denial to reconciliation and more space for honesty in our Italian American community and an ever expanding body of work upon which we can all stand.

Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum in her book, The Future has an Ancient Heart, writes “in forming this story has been my hope that in trying to tell or write a truthful story in a world manipulated into violence by untruths, I am working toward a more equal and therefore more just world.” 

I believe Unto the Daughters has achieved this."

Louisa and I met fourteen years ago when she introduced herself after my Unto the Daughters reading at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in New York City. Of her many award-winning works, my favorite still remains her memoir in poetry, Journey to the Heartwaters. You can purchase this memorable and evocative book by clicking here.

 Louisa's photoLouisa Calio-- poet, writer, performer, photo artist

 

Frankie D and I had a great conversation about the two narrative nonfiction books I've written based on my family stories.

Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster was born from learning as a tiny girl that the grandfather who died before I was born, John Tintori, survived the historical mine disaster. Most of the 259 victims, like my grandfather, were Italian immigrants who came from Apennine towns in the province of Modena, Italy.

Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian American Family comes from an eighty-year family secret kept by my maternal grandmother's side of the family, immigrants from Sicily.

Frankie D is a great interviewer and I look forward to meeting him in person at Casa Italia's Literati Day. I hope you enjoy listening to us as much as I enjoyed speaking with him on Italian American Life Podcast.

 

The June 24 Festa di San Giovanni -- the Feast of St. John the Baptist -- is a holiday celebrated by Italians in numerous cities since pre-Medieval Times. In some cities today, the celebration can last two to three days, with markets, and festivities each day. On the evening of June 23 bonfires are lit, nascent green walnuts are gathered from the trees, and the evening dew is collected in barrels and from the grass since it is believed to be imbued with magical powers. Tied to the Summer Solstice, this feast of a Catholic saint retains numerous pagan underpinnings. The bonfires are a reminder of those lit on the shores of Genoa to welcome St. John's relics to the city in 1098. In ancient days, the harvest of black walnuts while the husk is still tender and green to make a liqueur called Nocino was done by young virgins who climbed the trees, knocking down the nuts and then spreading them across the fields to absorb the evening's magic dew. Quartered the next day, then infused in a bath of alcohol and spices for six months, the green nuts produce a wonderful, rich, dark liqueur. Luckily for me, my son and daughter-in-law have a huge walnut tree in their front yard, and I get to make Nocino from the nuts my grandtwins collect for "Nonnie."

Pagan practices and Catholic traditions meld in this holiday. The night of the 23rd, also tied to the Divine Feminine, is an auspicious night for healers. The water collected from the dew is symbolic of St. John's baptismal waters. The streghe -- the healers, the white witches -- would collect the potent evening dew, adding herbs and other ingredients to make new batches of potions and ointments, leaving these mixtures outside overnight to soak up the energy of the moon. Some of this precious water was infused with flower petals overnight in the belief that washing one's face with the mixture on the morning of the 24th brought good luck and renewed beauty and protection from malocchio -- the evil eye. 

Italian proverbs say that anything can happen and everything can be remedied on this night, especially love. St. John's Eve was a time for divination of love by young men and women, who would drop molten lead into cold water and then interpret the hardened shapes left behind. In the alternative, should no lead be available, and you'd like to try this for yourself, you could separate an egg white from its yolk, drop it into a glass of water and leave it on your windowsill overnight on June 23. Bubbles floating at the top the next morning are a sign that you will find a mate who is comely, wealthy and simpatico, or "nice." An image of a church is a good omen, but not one indicating you will get married within the year. No images in the water? Better luck next St. John's Eve. 

I love the way the Italians have incorporated the pagan and the Catholic rituals to make unique rituals all their own, and have featured some in my other novels, including the traditional method for determining whether someone has been cursed with the evil eye. The Festa di San Giovanni and the search for the Divine Feminine play a crucial role in my work in progress, a novel titled now as The Goddess of Eden. Anything and everything does happen on this auspicious evening to my protagonist, Lia, as the festival bonfires trigger her to relive a childhood tragedy that changed the trajectory of her life. 

Listen in on a lively conversation about the writing life with Karen Tintori, Jill Gregory and the delightful host of Authors on the Air, Pam Stack. You can access our 2016 Authors on the Air broadcast, archived here.

Backstory's examination of honor throughout history includes an interview segment about my great-aunt Frances's story, told in Unto The Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family.

While much has been written about male honor -- as settled in duels, on the battlefield, etc. -- not much has been written about female honor. Typically, a female's honor is intrinsically bound up in the honor of her father, husband, brothers, and still is the impetus for honor killings in many corners of the world. 

Listen in as I discuss the many facets of honor at play in the story of my great-aunt's murder with Joanne Freeman, Yale professor of history and American studies.

Backstory is a weekly podcast that uses current events in the United States to take a deep dive into the American past. Hosted by noted U.S. historians, BackStory is made possible through the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and has ranked in the Top 10 of the iTunes Society and Culture list and as high as #10 among all iTunes podcasts.

The full podcast can be accessed at the Backstory website here.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue, the staggeringly successful first collaboration between Jill Gregory and me is finally an Ebook available at Amazon Kindle, iTunes, Barnes & Noble Nook and Smashwords

Four glamoruous women.  Four perfect brides.  Four deadly secrets.  When Perfect Bride magazine editor Monique D'Arcy decides to showcase three celebrity brides--including herself--plus one lucky Cinderella bride picked from the audience of the Oprah Winfrey Show, none of them can fathom the danger Monique's plan will pose to their upcoming marriages--or to their lives.

For these four stunning and happy brides--all ready to say "I Do"--are all hiding secrets that could destroy their hopes and dreams for the future.  As their fairy tale weddings draw near, will all four brides make it down the aisle to their happily ever afters?

Magazine editor Monique D'Arcy has built both her career and her relationship with her fiance on a lie--lovely fashion model Eve is being menaced by a relentless stalker-- gorgeous actress Ana Cates, engaged to a handsome U.S. Senator, is desperate to keep her shameful past from catching up to her--and sweet, hardworking manicurist, Teri, engaged to the nicest guy in the world, must outrun a heartbreaking truth that could destroy all her dreams of happiness.

Excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine, adapted by CBS for a TV Movie of the Week starring Connie Sellecca, Twiggy, Dina Merrill, Brett Cullen, Ron Howard, Paull Goldin and Shawnee Smith, and nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, Something Borrowed, Something Blue was originally published in hardcover by Doubleday and in softcover by Bantam Books.

Foreign rights sold in hardcover and softcover to the U.K., and in softcover to Korea, Russia and France.  Also published in large print edition.

As research for their actress character Ana, we spent five days in wintry Toronto, Canada, working as extras in the movie Used People starring Shirley MacLaine, Marcello Mastroianni, Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy and Marcia Gay Harden, and edited by Karen's brother, John Tintori.  You can catch them in the wedding reception scene, wearing poufy '60s hair and white eye shadow rimmed with thick black eyeliner--if you don't blink.

Check back for a report on what it's like to be in the movies from the other end of the camera!  Meantime, happy reading.  

 

Authors on the air

Many thanks to Stephanie Longo and Ovunque Siamo for the generous praise in her review of Unto The Daughters, which reads, in part:

"This book should be required reading in any Italian-American History class, as well as anyone wishing to study the female’s role in the Italian family. This book, while not an exercise in journalism, could also prove beneficial to students of the craft as Ms. Tintori’s prior training in the field served her well while untangling her great-aunt’s mystery."

"Unto the Daughters proves that all stories of our ancestors deserve to be told, the good, the bad and the ugly…and perhaps that is Francesca Costa’s legacy to us all."

You can read Longo's entire review here.

If you are an educator using Unto the Daughters in your curriculum, I would love to know. I have visited several classrooms both in person and via Skype. Grazie tanto. 

 

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