A different Sicilian story
DEBUT NOVEL A CONNECTICUT BOOK AWARDS FINALIST
Marco Rafalà was miserable The Middletown native had recently put aside his dreams of being a musician in favor of a “regular job” as a database editor for an internet startup. “It was awful,” recalls Rafalà, now 48. “I was miserable.”
His angst was so palpable, even his father saw it. “I think he, at one point, saw me floundering in job I hated,” Rafalà says. “He worked in a factory, so he knew what hating a job looked like.”
Perhaps to inspire his son, Rafalà’s father arranged for them to travel to Melilli, Sicily, where he was from. While there, Rafalà heard stories about his father’s life, growing up in Melilli during and after World War II. “I grew up listening to his stories,” Rafalà says, but added that, actually being in the village where his
father grew up and walking the streets his father frequented as a child gave him a new understanding.
“I found the answer to a question I didn’t know how to ask, which is ‘What is a story about Sicilian-Americans that isn’t about the Mafia?’ ”
The story in question developed into Rafalà’s debut novel “How Fires End,” which was published last year.
Rafalà, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., said it took him roughly a decade to write the book, which centers on a family from Mellili. The book was inspired by the stories Rafala’s father told him, including one about how his cousins died after playing with an unexploded ordinance.
In the book, a main character, Salvatore Vassallo, loses his twin brothers that way. The book follows Salvatore and his sister to a new life in Middletown, but eventually, the past catches up to the family.
Following his trip to Sicily, Rafalà says, he realized that he needed to write a novel — specifically a novel focusing on Melilli and the legacy of World War II.
“This is what I knew I should have been doing all along,” he says. “I thought it was important to tell stories of the working poor and middle class people and how their lives were affected by war.”
Though he was inspired by his father’s stories, Rafalà also knew he wanted his book to be fiction, and not a memoir or biography. “It never really entered my mind to write it from a non-fiction perspective,” he says. “I wanted the freedom, and probably the protection, that fiction could give me.”
Bringing the book to fruition was a lengthy process, involving workshops, revisions and multiple submissions. But the end result was worth it.
In September, “How Fires End” was named as a finalist in the fiction category for the Connecticut Center for the Book’s 2020 Connecticut Book Awards. Rafalà’s competitors in the category are “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong and “The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna,” by Juliet Grames.
The winners will be announced Oct. 15.
Even more important than the awards recognition is the reception he’s received from readers, Rafalà says.
“People have read the book and told me it gave them a deeper understanding of their Sicilian parents,” he says. “It’s nice to spend 10 years of your life working on something that means so much to you and know that you’re connecting with a readership out there.”
He’s working on another book tied to Melilli and inspired by family stories, but says it’s slow going. “I work slowly and (the COVID-19 pandemic) makes it slower,” he says.
Rafalà was hit personally by the pandemic when his mother — who still lives in Connecticut — contracted the illness. “It was in middle of spring, when (COVID was) really bad in the city so I couldn’t go there and see her,” he said. “That was difficult emotionally.”
Writing took something of a backseat while he dealt with those personal issues. But Rafalà says he’s still determined to tell stories as long as people are interested in reading them. “I hope the book won’t take too long to finish,” he says.