I became a fan of Jo Piazza’s through her brilliant Under the Influence podcast, which explores constructions of motherhood and femininity through the looking glass of social media. She interviewed me about Love in the Time of Incarceration on Committed, a podcast about marriage— see the episodes on polyamory WHEW!!!!
Not only is she a journalist who asks all the right questions about what it means to be a woman in the 21st century, she is also a novelist??!?!? And mother of THREE?!?!?! And a real one: a peer and comrade in the trenches of “media,” and an ideal companion for a gossipy lunch, the highest of all compliments, IMO.
Jo and I talked about her brilliant new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance, coming out April 2. Pre-order it here.
The Sicilian Inheritance is based on a family mystery!!! How did you go about researching, and when did you decide to let imagination take over?
So the book is loosely based on the murder of my great great grandmother Lorenza Marsala in Sicily in 1916. My family has been telling this story for generations, about the matriarch who was killed before she could join her husband and sons in America. I knew a little about it but I didn’t want to dig into the real story until I wrote the novel. I wanted to enjoy writing fiction and creating characters and scenarios. I just started with the nugget of a woman in danger when her husband leaves for America.
But after the book was written I decided I wanted to know the real story. That I wanted to solve the murder so I’ve been doing that for the past year. I mean I’m a totally psycho for doing this with three kids but I’ve been digging through records at Ellis island and with ancestry and going back and forth to Sicily to find death records and court records and interview people from her village. I’m actually here as I type this.
What was your mood board for the novel? Movies/books/images/food/emotional landscapes you were referencing/engaging with?
I’ve been to Sicily about a dozen times so I went through all my old pictures of my trips. It was soooooo much food. I wanted to write a novel that was delicious in absolutely every single way. I wanted to make my reader hungry for food and wine and adventure and travel and sex. So it was all pasta and insanely gorgeous beaches and craggy cliffs and then also a lot of Raoul Bova and Monica Belluci.
I love love love the chracter Serafina, who is loosely based on your great great grandma, so much, especially because it dovetails with the research I happen to be doing. I was reading the feminist epic Witches, Midwives, and Nurses and The Sicilian Inheritance simultaneously. How did you vivify this character?
So one of the theories about why my great great grandmother was murdered is that she was a witch (which is what my family said) but also that she was a midwife and a healer. It was common for women to be the healthcare providers for their village, but also to provide more traditional medicine. I did a lot of research into traditional healing and stregas in Sicily for the book to make Serafina come alive.
4. You are so damn prolific and you have three young kids. I know Lauren Groff hates being asked this question and says it is sexist but I don't care because I need to know: How do you do it???? Tips and tricks, pls!
Hahaha. I don’t hate being asked this question because I think it helps young women who want to be both mothers and writers. I get a lot of younger women coming up to me at events saying thank you for showing them that you can do and enjoy both. Yeah it’s true men don’t get asked this but it’s also true that women have to fucking deal with it so we need role models. Here’s my big thing, I don’t fuck around. I’m efficient as hell. I wrote every day and I set a word limit and make a to do list and I check it all off as efficiently as I can so I can go be a mom. I also have allllll of the childcare. I moved back to Philly to be close to my mom. She helps for overnights when I travel. We have an au pair who lives in the house with us. And most importantly, I am married to a man who shares the mental and physical load of being a parent.
5. We have talked about a conundrum many of us face: the state of the publishing industry and our love of writing/inability to do much else-- I think you said you'd run a plumbing supply store, which is an excellent idea. How do you reconcile the two impulses/keep hope alive? Asking for a friend, who is me.
This is so hard to answer because there is a part of me that wants this to be my last book, to go out with a bang and call it a fucking day. I love creating stories and reaching readers more than anything, but the process of marketing and selling a book is exhausting and depressing and soul crushing. Many days I feel like I am out here alone shouting into a void. So yeah I would love to run a plumbing supply store or become a commercial pilot (I’ve seriously been considering this) because all of the work authors have to do to try to make their books successful enough to keep doing this isn’t sustainable.
You are writing a #TRADWIFE THRILLER! Can you dangle any morsels?
It’s just such a world that is ripe for treachery and gentle satire. I’m writing it in installments and making it free on my substack when people pre-order The Sicilian Inheritance (another one of those things I’m doing to try to get this book out there). But it actually is a ton of fun. It’s about two college friends who reconnect in their early thirties. One of them has become a tradwife influencer with millions of followers. Our tradwife’s husband ends up dead and she disappears and her old friend needs to solve the crime to clear her name.
Give us some recs! What are you watching/reading/devouring these days?
I just finished the new season of The Gilded Age which is terrible but also delicious. [NB: Couldn’t agree more!] My favorite book from last year was Patti Henry’s The Secret Book of Flora Lea. I also love the show Platonic with Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan about two college friends who are having midlife crises and high jinx ensue. I recently devoured the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano and I recommend it to anyone who wants a cozy, laugh out loud read.