Murder in Matera, by Helene Stapinski (2017)
Journalist Helene Stapinski grew up with the family lore of her great-great-grandmother Vita. Vita had immigrated to the United States in the 1890s with her two teenage son, leaving her husband behind. Vita was a murderess. She had killed someone and left Italy to escape punishment. She was also said to be a loose woman. Why did she leave her husband behind? She certainly paid the ultimate price for her crime when she, herself, was killed by a blow to the head at age 64.
Once in America, one of Vita’s sons went into a life of crime, as did the author’s grandfather. Now the author ponders whether there really is a criminal gene, and would it be passed on to her children?
This thought haunts her, so she decides to venture back to the family’s ancestral home in Bernalda, Italy ~ the instep of Italy’s boot to learn her family’s history. With little knowledge of her family background, with limited ability to speak Italian, and with two small children in tow, the author arrived in Bernalda and began asking questions. She comes up empty.
Ten years later, the author ventured back to Italy, this time armed with two capable researchers who assist her as she pores over public birth, death, marriage records, and court murder transcripts. What she finds astonishes her.
In the course of uncovering her family history, the author describes what life would have been like for the average peasant living hand-to-mouth in this rugged part of Italy. The wealthy landowners were still expected to sleep with a young bride of his peasant worker. The author envisions that this is what happened to Vita. Her telling of Vita’s life is largely fiction, but is a plausible snapshot of how people lived in Bernalda in the latter half of the 1800s.
Spoiler Alert: The trial transcript does, indeed, describe a murder. The murderer is not, however, Vita, but instead, her husband Francesco. The peasants are starving and do anything to get food for their families. In the dead of night, Francesco and two of his friends were out taking pears from their landowner’s property. They were confronted by whom they thought was the landowner. The landowner had a shotgun and shot at the three men, slightly injuring one. The other two men confronted the gunman, knocked him to the ground and badly beat him. The injured man died a few days later. Only later to they learn that the injured man was a young teenager, probably out to protect his family’s fruit orchard. Francesco is found guilty of manslaughter and sent to prison.
A close look at the birth certificates of Vita’s children reveals that Vita is the wife of Francesco, but that he is “far from town” at the time of the births. This leads the author to surmise that, with her husband in prison, Vita “gave” herself to the landowner in exchange for food. The author also realized that if there is a murderous gene, it was not in Vita’s side of the family afterall.
This was a fast-paced read. Much of what the author writes about her “murderous” great-great-grandmother is speculation, but does provide a glimpse of the harsh life of a peasant living in southern Italy in the later 1800s.
Read: April 16, 2022
4 Stars
