I decided a few months after The Cielo was published. I have to admit that I’d been living with these people – the characters – for so long that I missed them. I wondered what they were doing next. So I thought that I should somehow continue their story. I wasn’t sure how to do that at first, but then I thought of Ezio (Sparrow), the partisan. He had left Sant’Anna before the massacre in which his beloved Angelica was killed. He knew that the Nazis were going to invade, but he was helpless. I thought about the guilt and remorse he must be suffering and how he would want to take revenge. And then I thought about the collaborator, and what he must be going through. So the more I thought about these people, the more their story unfolded in my head, and ultimately on paper.

Were you surprised when The Cielo won so many awards?

I certainly was. I mean, this was my first novel. I’d never taken a fiction writing class. Yes, I’ve been a journalist all my life and so nonfiction writing has come easily. But I struggled with fiction writing. The first time I changed a character’s quote, I thought, “Oh, no, I can’t change quotes.” But of course I had made it up in the first place so I could change it. But then it became more natural. Yes, I was honored and humbled to receive first place awards and honorable mentions.

Most readers probably aren't familiar with the massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema. Would you briefly give us some background information on the events?

This was a time, the summer of 1944 during WWII, when the Germans were retreating north as the Allies, mainly the British and Americans, were advancing from the south. The Allies had started in Sicily and slowly worked their way north. The Germans, assisted by Mussolini’s army, were retreating and retreating. They were also getting desperate and the number of atrocities committed against civilians was increasing. Also, the Resistance movement – the partisans – was becoming increasingly stronger and a real menace to the Germans. Anyone who helped the partisans in any way would be killed. The Germans suspected the people at Sant’Anna of helping the partisans and so the entire village was to be destroyed and everyone killed.Incidentally, the massacre is the central part of a new film directed by Spike Lee, Miracle at Sant’Anna. It’s based on the book by James McBride, who also wrote the screenplay. While my book centers on civilians involved in the massacre, the book and film focuses on the Buffalo Soldiers, an American unit that liberated Sant’Anna.

How did you become interested in telling the story of the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre?

When I began writing The Cielo I didn’t even know about it. My cousin Fosca (who is the model for Rosa in the books) hadn’t told me about the terrible event. But then I read an article in The New York Times describing it, and since the setting for my novel was not more than thirty miles away, I knew I had to make this a major part of the story.

Is Angelo Donatello, the fugitive also called Occhio unico, based on a real person? Are any of the other prominent Fascists in Sparrow's Revenge?

There were Italian collaborators, and probably one major ones, but the character is fictional.

How about the protagonist, Ezio Maffini? He’s also fictional, a composite of several partisans I’d read about.

Is there really a legend of il ragazzo fantasmo, the "ghost boy", in Tuscany?

There are a lot of legends, but this one is fictional. I do know, however, that some children did escape from Sant’Anna and I wondered what they would be doing and how their lives would be.

You're the son of Italian immigrants and you use some Italian in your book. Do you speak the language?

I wish I did. My parents spoke Italian when they didn’t want us kids to know what they were talking about, but I never learned it from them. I’ve taken several courses. I can get along well enough in Italy, but I do need an interpreter to conduct interviews, and I can’t read the language. For that, I need the help of my daughter, who is a professor of Italian at the University of Delaware.

Your father grew up in a small Tuscan village called San Martino, which you stated in the interview on your website, thecielobook.com, is the basis for Sant'Antonio. Are there other fictional towns and villages in Sparrow's Revenge? If so, which real places did you base them on?

Pietrasanta and Barga are, of course, real places, but the little villages are mostly fictional but based on the villages I’ve seen.

There is a lot of geographic and historical detail in Sparrow's Revenge. How long did it take you to do the research for your book? How did you conduct your research?

I’ve been to Italy about a dozen times, starting in 1984, so I think I had a good sense of Tuscany. But since both The Cielo and Sparrow’s Revenge are historical works, I needed to do a lot of research. For the first, I think I read about 55 books, including those about the war, about the Resistance movement, about Italy, about the SS, and so on. For Sparrow’s Revenge, I needed to do more research about Italy in 1955, the whole postwar period. This was mainly from reading and from interviews.

Did you interview many former partisans and Italian anti-Fascists before writing your books? If so, how did you find them and get in contact with them?

I interviewed a couple of each on my visits to Italy, thanks to the help of an interpreter, and they were all very good. I had a better sense of their lives and motives.

The Garfagnana region of Tuscany figures prominently in Sparrow's Revenge. Have you been there? If so, what is it like today?

It’s a very popular place now for hiking. But it’s still very treacherous and, I think, mysterious. I can see how legends abound in the little villages and on the mountains. It’s really an unknown and fascinating part of Italy.

Sparrow's Revenge contains some warnings about believing everything you hear and demonizing people who have wronged you. Why did you decide to incorporate these ideas into your book?

I’ve been fascinated with this idea. We hear so many things from governments, institutions, even churches that we’re told are the truth and we’re supposed to believe them. Then we find out they’re not true, or at least not entirely true. Certainly that was borne out in the recent political campaign. I think we need to do our own research and then make up our minds. I think many of us believe what we want to believe.As for forgiveness and forgetting, those are also very complicated issues. Anyone who has been wronged knows how difficult it is, if not impossible, to forgive, even less to forget. So I was trying to get at that, too. But I hope this didn’t turn out to be preachy. I just wanted to write a good story.

What's your writing process like?

It would be nice to say that I get up at 6 a.m. and write for four hours, take a break and then write for four more. I envy writers who do that, and a good friend does. I don’t have that discipline. I get an idea and I think about it for a long while and sketch out the scene or story in my head and then go to the computer and write and write. Often, I think of changes that I want to make and go back and back and back.

Do you have plans to write a third novel about the characters from the Cielo group?

Well, as a matter of fact…. This time, as I was writing, I wondered if I could write another novel. Doesn’t “A Tuscan Trilogy” have a nice ring to it? I like the Little Dino character and I’m thinking that maybe he’s an art student in Florence, and maybe he’s there in 1966 when the great flood occurred, and maybe…. Well, this will take another trip to Italy to do research. I know, I know, a writer has to make great sacrifices.

The bio on the back of Sparrow's Revenge says that you have been a writing instructor. What advice would you give someone interested in writing historical fiction?

I teach journalism writing courses at Marquette University, but I found in writing these two novels that there are similarities between fiction and nonfiction writing. First, one has to do a lot of research. One has to learn how to observe the smallest of details about people, situations and environments. One has to learn about who the people (characters) are. One has to listen and hear dialogue. So many of the things a journalist does can be applied to fiction as well.

Biography:

Books: Sparrow's Revenge, The Cielo