I also explored and filmed videos of the Ghetto, the synagogue, Tiber Island, the Tiber River, and Trastevere, as well as secondary locations like La Sapienza, Via Tasso, Collegio Militare, and the catacombs. You can find these videos on my website.
The pasta-making scenes I took from spending hours in the kitchen with my own beloved mother, Mary, who made “homemades” every Sunday morning. She was a feisty product of Chieti in the Abruzzo region, a background that I borrowed for Maria. Mother Mary was a true pasta professoressa, and I have written about her in my nonfiction memoirs, which I coauthor with my daughter Francesca Serritella. And like Nonna, Mother Mary always answered a question with a question.
After all, why not?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is my chance to thank the experts who helped me with Eternal, but first, some background.
To write this novel, I had to research extensively the rise and eventual fall of Fascism in Italy, especially the barrage of Race Laws promulgated against Italian Jews. I read every book I could get my hands on and bought so many that I had to build new shelves. Booklovers will recognize this as a great problem to have.
After I had read as much as I could, I sought out one of the most preeminent historians on the subject, Stanislao Pugliese, a Fulbright scholar and professor of Modern European History and Queensboro UNICO distinguished professor of Italian and Italian-American Studies at Hofstra University. Despite Stan’s busy schedule, he read Eternal many times for accuracy, making many terrific suggestions and corrections, for which I am forever grateful to him. Thank you so much, Stan.
For those interested in this subject matter, I strongly recommend Stan’s books because they are superbly written and accessible. He is the author or editor of fifteen books on Fascism and Italian Jewish history, including Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and the Resistance in Italy; the collection The Most Ancient of Minorities: The Jews of Italy; Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone; Carlo Rosselli: Socialist Heretic and Antifascist Exile; and many others.
Other standout books on the subject are Alexander Stille’s Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, Robert Katz’s Black Sabbath: A Journey Through a Crime Against Humanity, and Susan Zuccotti’s Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy. I give my thanks to those wonderful scholars, too, as their books informed my understanding of the subject. You can find a complete bibliography of similar books on my website, because they are too numerous to reproduce here.
Thank you to Ilaria Mazzaferro, the Italian translator of many of my previous books, as I am lucky enough to be published in Italy. I asked Ilaria for help because she has always gone the extra mile, often emailing me questions about a word or an idiom. I owe Ilaria a huge debt of gratitude for making everything in Eternal as authentic as possible. Ilaria made corrections and answered all my questions with her characteristic good cheer, and I thank her very much for all of her help.
Professor Andrea Dall’Aglio is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Department of Mathematics Guido Castelnuovo, University of Rome, known as La Sapienza. I met Andrea during my research into the real-life Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita, who taught there. Professor Dall’Aglio was kind enough to take his time to discuss Levi-Civita with me and answer my questions, which informed the characterization of Levi-Civita and the fictional Sandro. Thank you so much, Andrea.
Thanks, too, to his colleague, Professor Enrico Rogora, also an Associate Professor of Mathematics at La Sapienza, who shared with me his lecture and research on Levi-Civita.
I love libraries and am their huge supporter, speaking at them and raising funds whenever I can. So when I needed to research these historical topics, I turned to one of the best academic libraries in the country, the Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania. Thank you so much to librarian Matthew Pilecki, who helped me locate volumes of recently released Vatican archives, telegrams, and correspondence regarding the Italian Holocaust and related matters, which informed the background for this novel. Matthew was the most patient and perfect guide ever, and all librarians rock.
Special thanks to the Centro Primo Levi in New York City, a robust organization dedicated to educating the public about the legacy of Primo Levi and of Italian Jews. Deputy Director Alessandro Cassin and the Centro welcomed me into its community and at many of their programs and lectures, and its librarians helped me with my research, too. Thank you to the Centro and its terrific staff, especially Alessandro Cassin, Deputy Director, who answered my questions at lectures.