Part of my curiosity grew from my experience writing a memoir.  In that memoir, I explored my family’s history of anger across three generations, starting with my father.  I studied my father’s life in depth, building on my direct observations with interviews and historical analysis of the environment in which he came of age (World War II Trieste).  I learned much about him and about myself, and developed compassion, if not complete forgiveness, for the choices he made that had negative ripple effects on me and my children.

I was also curious because I saw in the unanswered questions about the conflict between Umberto and Amedeo an opportunity to develop what some of my writing group buddies have dubbed an emotional thriller.

It was relatively easy to posit a dramatic and thrilling turnabout in their relationship by setting it during the 45 days that the Yugoslav Army imposed a reign of terror on Trieste at the end of World War II.  I’ve never had so much fun in my life.

It has been far more challenging to develop the backstory, and answer all the why questions.  Since I don’t know why, and my father’s explanations don’t satisfy me,  I have to develop a plausible scenario that leads each brother into their conflict.  To do that, I have to understand all the potential influences on their evolving views of the world, everything they might have been exposed to during their teens and early 20s.

To figure it all out, I’ve already read about 30 books, about 10 in Italian, ranging from a detailed political history of Italy (a type of book the Italians call a “mattone,” or brick) to novels like Italo Svevo’s “A Life (Una Vita)” and Scipio Slataper’s “Il Mio Carso (My Carso).”  With that foundation, I was starting to develop a handful of hypothetical intellectual and literary threads Umberto and Amedeo might have followed.  Here again, never had so much fun in my life.

The problem is that I had only arrived at a level of understanding akin to “just enough to be dangerous.”  That assessment was driven home earlier today when I had the opportunity to meet with Prof. Cristina Benussi, dean of the University of Trieste’s department of Literature and Philosophy.  She’s an expert on Trieste literature and political thought of the 1800s and 1900s, exactly the period I’ve been trying to understand.  I laid out my hypothetical scenarios. She smiled kindly and told me “It’s far more complicated than you think.”  She gave me a few examples.  I agree with her.

Now I have a choice to make.  How much deeper do I go?  Do I run with what I have, thereby underlining “novel” in the phrase “historical novel”?

Pahor is perhaps best known for his widely-translated book Necropoli.  Necropoli is a fictionalized version of his experience as a World War II political prisoner condemned to the Nazi death camps.  He was saved from the ovens by his knowledge of languages.

He has also been a powerful voice for Slovenian culture.  My favorite book of his, Qui E’ Proibito Parlare, or Here It Is Forbidden to Speak, published in 2009 (when he was just 96…) portrays in fiction the struggle he personally lived and observed of a minority language and culture suppressed for political reasons.  The story revolves around a young Slovenian couple, Ema and Danilo, and I was simply entranced by Pahor’s lyrical descriptions of both their romance and their political awakening.  The book also provided me with terrific details of place and time for my novel.

The context for Qui E’ Proibito Parlare was the nationalism and fascism that swept through Italy in the 1920s and 30s, leading to policies such as banning spoken Slovenian.  Other policies were a ban on Catholic sermons in Slovenian, a policy the Vatican condoned; the forced Italianization of place names and surnames, a policy that affected more than 50,000 families and, in some cases, led local authorities to require the replacement of tombstones; the dismantling or outright destruction of bi-lingual Italian-Slovenian schools, libraries and cultural institutions; the imprisonment or forced resettlement of thousands of Slovenian professionals such as teachers, lawyers and government officials to other parts of Italy; and constraints on business that led thousands of Slovenians to move to other parts of Europe or to the US.

It’s no small irony that Pahor’s university training in Padova led to an initial career as a professor of Italian literature.  He quotes Dante at will.  But that career provided him with underground access to sources and texts that allowed him to master Slovenian and its literary history as well.

In talking with Pahor, I found many places where his family’s history crosses paths with mine.  For example, when he was born, he lived on Via del Monte, at the time part of one of Trieste’s worst slums, when my grandfather Umberto and his family lived there.  Umberto, his brother Amedeo and sister Anna were the same age as Pahor’s parents and doubtless knew them.  They may even have greeted baby Boris when he was born; the street is only a few hundred meters long.

When I told Pahor that much of the action in my historical novel, which is loosely based on the lives of Umberto, Amedeo and Anna, took place in the San Giacomo neighborhood, Pahor regaled me with great stories of San Giacomo’s history as a culturally diverse neighborhood, including a substantial Slovenian population, as well as a rough’n’ready labor-union and communist stronghold that first Fascists and later the Nazis were wise to avoid at night.  His intimate knowledge of Trieste’s history provided some great insights that helped me clarify my theories about how two brothers, Umberto and Amedeo, could have grown into such completely different lives, setting up a conflict that mirrored the political and cultural conflicts going on around them.

It was truly an honor to be able to spend a couple of hours over coffee with such a worldly wise and literate man.  May he continue to write and teach for another 100 years.

On that day, a brilliant late spring day, a wave of B-24 Liberators, P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings of the US Army’s 15th Air Force attacked the city’s oil storage facilities.  Unfortunately, these enormous oil tanks lay on the edge of the port just 500 meters down the hill from my great-grandmother’s home.  Perhaps the bombardiers were new to their jobs.  Perhaps their pilots had taken evasive action to avoid German anti-aircraft fire and veered a bit off course.  Perhaps a rack of bombs didn’t release and had to wait for a crew member to manually pry them loose, the bombs falling out late and overshooting the target.  Perhaps there were targets in the city itself, such as military barracks, train yards, or the Palace of Justice which housed the German headquarters in Trieste.

What is certain is that Maria had not gone to the bomb shelter three blocks away under Piazza Puecher.  Perhaps she hadn’t heard the air-raid sirens.  Perhaps she, as so many others that day, chose not to respond after dozens of air-raid drills conducted by the occupying Germans and the Triestine authorities with the express purpose of protecting the civilian population.  It had been nine months since the Germans had occupied Trieste to secure its vital port and oil refinery.  It had been three years to the day since Italy had entered the war on the side of Germany.  This was the first time that Trieste had been attacked from the air.

One of those bombs spiraled slowly as it fell at terminal velocity and pierced the red-tile roof over my great-grandmother’s tiny apartment.  The stone and mortar structure imploded onto Maria and half a dozen mules parked in the ground-floor stable by area farmers who were peddling cheese, milk and dried meats in town.  462 other people died under the bombs that day.  More than 4,000 were injured or left homeless.  399 other buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged.  Spared was an identical building joined to Maria’s by a simple breezeway covering the entrance to the stable.

It feels odd to me that my great-grandmother was killed by an American bomb delivered by an American airplane piloted by Americans.

I stand at number 38 Via dei Giuliani and look up at the plain concrete facade of the apartment building that rose from the rubble of Maria’s home.  If I stand in the doorway, I am just 10 feet from where her body was found.  To the left, that sister building remains, a mirror image of Maria’s, and I study it, trying to imagine her living there with my grand-uncle Amedeo and his wife Netti.  And dying there.

This morning I visited Maria’s church, San Giacomo.  According to my father Stelio, she came here every weekday for vespers and every Sunday for a full mass.  Tomorrow I will visit the San Giacomo parish’s historian and its current priest to learn more about the day she died.  The church hosted the mass funeral for the 463 victims.  The central nave was filled with row upon row of plain pine coffins.  Thousands filled the broad square outside, including my grandfather Umberto, my grandmother Ada, Stelio, Amedeo and Netti.

Another nine bombardments would strike the city before the end of the war, raising the death toll to just over 700.

A marble plaque on an outside wall of San Giacomo urges passersby to remember that day’s dead.  I hope they also keep fixed in their memories the horror, tragedy and hipocrisy of war.

“Amedeo” is loosely based on the lives of my grandfather Umberto and his brother Amedeo.  Bitterly estranged in their 20′s as Fascism is in its ascendancy in 1920′s Italy, they survive the Depression and almost all of World War II.  When the Yugoslav Army takes over Trieste in April of 1945, a wave of revenge killings erupts.  Umberto, a well-to-do banker and ardent Fascist, becomes a target.  Amedeo, a trolley driver, behind-the-scenes trade unionist and reluctant Communist, finds himself in a position to save his brother, but only at the risk of his own life.

This will be my third research trip to Trieste.  I feel very fortunate that through those visits I have had the privilege of getting to know not just a complex and fascinating city but dozens of wonderful people who now constitute my second family.

Among Hemingway’s short stories, I’d never read “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” but now understand why it’s a favorite.  And I know at least one woman who could have stood in Margot’s shoes and shot just as calmly.

I chose Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” and couldn’t put it down.  I was reminded of Hugo’s “Les Miserables.”  Images of the story still flood my mind, as if I’d seen a movie.

Sinclair Lewis’ “Main Street” was surprisingly enthralling and, more than a year later, still comes up in conversation here at home.  Of course it doesn’t help that Vashon Island’s population is not much different than that of Gopher Prairie.

I can’t help but be amazed that James’ “Portrait of a Lady” (as well as Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities”) was first published as a serial, in James’ case in the Atlantic Monthly.  Yes, I love Isabel, vote for Lord Warburton and try to warn Isabel about Gilbert Osmond, but I marvel most at the ability to create a story, a relatively quiet story, and turn it out as a series of episodes that, as each ends, commands the reader to turn the page (or wait for the next edition of the magazine).

James Joyce spent much of his adult life in Trieste, making his living as an English teacher.  Unwilling (yet…) to tackle “Ulysses,” I took on his novella “The Dead.”  I was so taken by the closing scene that I wanted to share it somehow.  Shortly after I finished reading it, I had to go to London.  Knowing that some of my clients there would be Irish, I wanted to be ready for any request to join in a round of song.  Since I can’t hold a tune, I decided to bring an excerpt to read.  I didn’t get a chance to read it, but it would have made them cry.

Italo Svevo, a Triestine novelist, got to know Joyce when he needed to learn English.  They became friends, and it could be said Joyce “discovered” Svevo when the two began to exchange writing samples.  I’ve heard it said that Joyce’s character Bloom is based on Svevo.  I’ll learn more when I take on Joyce’s biography.  So far I’ve read Svevo’s “Zeno’s Conscience” and “A Life.”  I prefer Zeno.  He made me laugh out loud several times, and gave me great insight into turn-of-the-2oth-century Trieste.

Amedeo, a historical novel, is set in Trieste, in the final days of World War II.  The brothers, now in their 50s, haven’t spoken to each other in 20 years.  Their paths diverged as they began their careers.  Umberto became a banker, and Amedeo rejected the white-collar world and became a trolley driver.  Umberto fell under the spell of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s romanticism and nationalism.  Amedeo met Antonio Gramsci, the intellectual leader of the Italian Communist Party.  Umberto joined Mussolini’s Fascist Party and became moderately wealthy as a banker.  Amedeo lived simply and put all his money into buying books for the fellow trolley drivers that he was teaching how to read.  In 1925, the rift was complete upon the occasion of the baptism of Umberto’s son, Stelio.  Umberto snubbed Amedeo and chose his wife’s teenage brother to be the child’s godfather.

In April of 1945, the Yugoslav Army arrives in Trieste as the retreating German army vacates the city.  A wave of revenge killings begins, focused on Fascists and Nazi collaborators.  Amedeo learns that Umberto is targeted.  He must decide whether and, if so, how to protect his brother, knowing full well that by intervening he will put his own life at risk.

I’ve been working on this novel now for a year, on and off, stealing time between the consulting projects that constitute my “day job.”  Thanks to my writing group, I’ve made tremendous progress.  Along the way, I’ve identified a number of questions I can’t answer without additional research in Trieste — places, sights and sounds, historical details.  In a separate post, I report on the Grants for Artist Projects (GAP) grant I received from Seattle’s Artist Trust to support that research.

I’ve also put a lot of time into understanding the literary history of Trieste, particularly the influence of D’Annunzio, Gramsci, James Joyce and Italo Svevo on Umberto and Amedeo.

A shooting scene took me away from the keyboard for a few hours.  I had to learn about World War II weapons, the details of bullet wounds, and first aid practices of the period.  I even did a round of test firing to make sure the way I imagined the scene has some realism.

I’m at a point now where I’m submitting excerpts to professional journals and writing contests.  For a former marketing guy, this work amounts to test marketing.

As for the project as a whole?  I’ve never had so much fun in my life.

Separately, the essay “Telling Him” was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association annual writing contest, also in the Personal Essay category.

A big thank you to Writer’s Digest and PNWA for operating these contests.  The PNWA program includes written feedback.  Every submission gets read, and the author gets written feedback from two judges.  That feedback has been incredibly helpful to me as I work on improving my craft.