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14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES [ HARDCOVER: U S ] SUNDAY PROFILE Read all about it! Man-bats on the moon In 1835 the ‘Sun’ wowed New Yorkers with an elaborate and extremely profitable hoax BY MICHaeL Kenney NEW YorK TIMes NEWS SerVICE, Boston Among the take-it-for-granted marvels of computer technology could be counted the “Breaking News Alerts” that can be delivered to one’s computer — or even by a text message to the mobile phone. But at not so distant a time — even well into the 1950s — the cry of “Wuxtry, Wuxtry” could be heard as newspaper Extras were hawked on downtown street corners. The original in-your-ear news hawkers were the street urchins who peddled the Sun at a penny- a-paper on New York’s streets in the mid-1830s. And the story that they were hawking in the summer of 1835 is the subject of Matthew THE SUN AND THE MOON: Italian crime reporter Rosaria Capacchione has been under 24-hour police protection since a death threat was issued against her in March. PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE Goodman’s highly entertaining THE REMARKABLE TRUE ACCOUNT OF HOAXERS, The Sun and the Moon — the SHOWMEN, DUELING JOURNALISTS, AND LUNAR “Moon” being the Sun’s running MAN-BATS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY NEW YORK account of its own hoax, the BY MATTHEW GOODMAN discovery of life on the moon. And not just some primordial 350 PAGES life, but life worthy of a full- Making enemies in high places BASIC BOOKS blown hoax, unicorns and other mythic beasts, and — “Wuxtry, Rosaria Capacchione’s reporting on the Naples mob Wuxtry” — man-bats who ran, Day announced on his front not only flew over the lunar page that daily circulation was has landed her on best-seller lists — and hit lists landscape and bathed in its 19,360. None of his six-penny lakes, but engaged in behaviors competitors sold more than a few BY RACHEL DONADIO that had to be censored for the thousand. NY TIMes NEWS SerVICE, CASERTA, ItaLY sensibilities of the Sun’s readers. And what a summer it The Sun was the two-year- must have been for the city’s Italy, it is called the Capacchione hates having Using trial transcripts and her nothing of material value was said politicians still relied on old creation of a journeyman newspaper readers. In “Saviano effect,” the intense a police escort. “I lost all the own reporting, she shows how missing. “They took a journalism the Camorra to deliver votes. printer-turned-journalistic pioneer, PT Barnum was exhibiting national focus on the Camorra freedom I had,” she said glumly the bosses profited from con- prize I had won,” she said. “That And it is hard for citizens to Benjamin Day, who conceived the his own hoax, an elderly black elicited by Roberto Saviano’s last week, sitting at her desk at Il tracts to build a high-speed train one meant a lot to me.” distinguish between criminals idea of producing a “penny paper” woman who he was presenting 2006 best seller, Gomorrah, Mattino, in a concrete office block to Naples, through construction She does not know who did and non-criminals. to compete with the city’s existing as the 161-year-old nursemaid of which traced the rise of the in nondescript downtown Caserta. and through cartels that distrib- it. She does know that her police “You never know,” papers which sold for US$0.06 a George Washington. Campania region’s violent and “The funny thing is, I’ve had ute sugar and other basic com- escort will only protect her so Capacchione said. “Or even copy. “It Shines for All” was the And then there was Edgar economically mighty clans. much more serious and clear and modities to Campania. Thanks to much. “If they wanted to kill me, worse, you do know.” motto over the nameplate. Allan Poe who was convinced that But while Saviano, 29, has evident threats over the years. the Camorra, the region also has they’d kill me with or without an A study last year found that The Sun’s secret weapons were Locke had stolen the idea for the become a household name But there wasn’t the Saviano high rates of cocaine addiction escort here or abroad,” she said. organized crime was the largest the street urchins who peddled moon stories from his own short — appearing regularly in the Ital- phenomenon,” she said. “The and elevated cancer levels from Capacchione prides herself on segment of the Italian economy, the paper, rising before dawn from story about a balloon voyage to ian news media even after death rest of the world didn’t know toxic waste dumping. her “scientific” approach — accounting for 7 percent of the alleyways where they huddled the moon, Hans Phaall — A Tale. threats have forced him into that the Camorra or the Casalesi “I didn’t want to write a book, reading the signs, combing through Italy’s gross domestic product, or together, buying their bundles of That had appeared, obscurely, in hiding — others have spent years existed,” she said, adding, “I’ve but Rizzoli practically forced me court documents. In one trial, she US$127 billion a year. papers, at US$0.67 for a hundred the Southern Literary Messenger quietly covering, and uncovering, been doing this job since before to,” Capacchione said, refer- noticed that prosecutors had not So what’s the solution? “I papers, and hoping to make just two months before Locke’s the same polluted terrain. Saviano was born.” ring to her Italian publisher. provided as much background don’t know,” Capacchione said. enough for a supper of a butter stories began running in the Sun. One of the most respected is Under the Camorra, in recent Instead, she sees herself as a beat information on one defendant as “It’s a complex problem.” Over cake and coffee. But when the Sun went Rosaria Capacchione, a veteran decades the Campania region, reporter, uncomfortable with the they had on the others. “I went and the years “they’ve arrested hun- The hoax came as the prover- looking for another hoax, some reporter for Il Mattino, a daily which surrounds Naples, has “media circus” that erupted after filled in the missing pieces.” dreds and hundreds of people.” bial “pennies from heaven,” for nine years later, it turned to Poe newspaper in Caserta, outside become the hub of an interna- she was threatened. It is a battle of wits and wills Indeed, since the mid-1990s, a few weeks making them rich who produced an account of a Naples, who since the mid-1980s tional criminal web involving Capacchione, 48, was born between the Camorristi and the More than 500 people have been enough for oyster suppers and balloon crossing of the Atlantic, has reported on the short lives, drug trafficking, illegal waste and raised in Caserta and still authorities. “The most fun thing is arrested and more than 4,000 warm beds. three days from England to the violent deaths and intricate dumping, public works fraud lives there today. She has heavy, when you find smart authorities investigated as part of operations It was the brainstorm of a Carolina coast. finances of the members of the and money laundering through Levantine eyes, a smoker’s voice fighting smart criminals,” she said. like the continuing “Spartacus” British immigrant, Richard Adams As for the Sun, it merged with Camorra’s ruling families, particu- semi-legitimate businesses like and a small, sparkling cross “It becomes like a chess game.” trial, one of the most complex in Locke, who had been hired by the World-Telegram in 1950 — larly the Casalesi, as those who supermarkets and game parlors. around her neck. Reserved and In the land of the Camorra, Italian history. “My book is the Day as a police reporter. Locke and that morphed into the short- hail from the town of Castel di In her first book, The Gold of at times sardonic, she sometimes there is a blurry line between story of investigations,” she says. had an interest in astronomy and lived World Journal Tribune. Principe are known. the Camorra, which appeared in smiles and occasionally laughs. legality and illegality. It is not And yet nothing changes. The that apparently provided the seed The name resurfaced in the New Recently, that has led to November and is already on Italian But to be in Capacchione’s uncommon to find organized clan members “regenerate them- for the moon hoax. York Sun that died this fall after another kind of “Saviano effect.” best-seller lists, Capacchione presence is to absorb an intensity crime figures with relatives in selves.” As a reporter, “I’m on The weeklong series, writes a half-dozen years. The Sun itself In March, Capacchione was given tracks the careers of four of the — and fatalism — born from public office, law enforcement, the third generation,” she notes. Goodman, “a rich amalgam of is best remembered today for its a police escort after a Camorra Casalesi’s most brilliant criminal years spent covering a violent, the judicial system or other “They live short lives.” technical detail and lyrical fancy,” Christmas editorial of 1897, “Yes, defendant in a high-profile trial minds — Francesco Schiavone, seemingly intractable conflict. state operations like health care, That everyone knows there is seemed, even to some who knew Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus,” issued a death threat against her Francesco Bidognetti, Michele Being in the front lines has its Capacchione said.

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