AVERAGE SINNERS by ANNE-CHRISTINE HOFF Under The

AVERAGE SINNERS by ANNE-CHRISTINE HOFF Under the Direction of Reginald McKnight ABSTRACT This novel is loosely based on the murder of an Italian journalist, Mino Pecorelli, who in 1979 was shot dead in broad daylight on a busy Roman street and whose murder initially touched off an intense, but brief investigation. The case was dropped for political reasons, and only reopened again in 1993, twenty four years later, when informers in the Maxi Trial told authorities that a well-known Italian senator, Giulio Andreotti, had asked Mafia captain Gaetano Badalamenti to arrange the hit as a personal favor. My story opens just after the reopening of the Maxi Trials in 1992. My protagonist, Paolo Taviani, has returned to Rome to take over Occham's Razor, a bookstore he has inherited from his former employer, Carlo Levi. The story deals with Paolo's psychological conflict: Should he involve himself in the reopening of his uncle's trial, or should he stay out of it? Because of his American wife's renewed Catholic faith and her growing friendship with her religion teacher, Father Dante, my protagonist Paolo is always reminded of the moral implication of both decisions, while his distrust of organized religion spurs him to be cynical about both the trial and his wife’s faith. INDEX WORDS: Italian history; Catholic history; Mafia history; Sicilian history; mother/son relationships, Italian politics; generational conflict; cross-cultural boundaries AVERAGE SINNERS by ANNE-CHRISTINE HOFF B.A., Barnard College, 1995 M.A., New York University, 1997 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2005 © 2005 Anne-Christine Hoff All Rights Reserved AVERAGE SINNERS by ANNE-CHRISTINE HOFF Major Professor: Reginald Mcknight Committee: Judith Ortiz Cofer Thomas Peterson Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following people, without whom this novel could not have been written: The University of Georgia Graduate School, for generously funding my research in Rome with a graduate student travel grant; my advisor, Reg McKnight, for encouraging me when I wanted to give up; my parents, Gerhardt and Lisa Hoff, for being both exacting and generous with their comments, for prodding me through the book’s many stages, and for their generous financial and emotional support; my sister, Elisabeth, for dropping me off at a Minneapolis coffee shop when I needed to work; my friend, Anna Bighta, for chasing that guy towing my car, for pointing out the humor in the word “creachy-creen,” and for the occasional Scrabble game and the many cranberry and vodkas enjoyed in each others’ company; my boyfriend, David Lee, for reading both my shitty and my later drafts without passing judgment (I thank you) and for sending me “Buy Things,” “Commencement,” and other songs that kept me inspired; Tom Peterson, for smiling when I walked into Room 254 for my defense; Iyabo Osiapem, for being so 150% together and for being at the main library enough to remind me what could be done, if only I could get my shit together as well; for my students, for forgiving me when I was scattered or anxious and for reminding me that even if I didn’t grow up to be a fiction writer, I could still be considered “cool,” so long as I continued to tell jokes in class; and Dr. David Roberts and Michael Mewshaw, for returning the e-mails of a stranger. I thank you all with my whole heart. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 PART I...........................................................................................................................................23 CHAPTER 1 BLACK KNIGHTS WEND THEIR WAY BACK.....................................................24 2 JOB WAS RIGHT TO ASK........................................................................................34 3 LIVIA SPITS WHEN SHE PASSES A MAN OF THE CLOTH...............................47 4 LITTLE OLD LADIES DOUSE THEIR GIRDLES WITH H ...................................62 5 THE SHADOW RISES FROM BENEATH THE CATACOMBS.............................71 6 CARLO EARNS A SNACK CAKE............................................................................78 7 SUPERMAN CANNOT SAVE YOU.........................................................................90 8 SEWING THEIR MOUTHS SHUT WITH NEEDLE AND THREAD...................103 9 CLAUDIA’S GRANDSON WILL SACRIFICE RAMS FOR RAMADAN............114 10 RELAYING TRAGIC SNATCHES OF CONVERSATION ...................................121 11 NOT TO BE ONE OF THE LADIES BETTERMENT LEAGUE ...........................133 12 NEITHER GOOD, NOR BAD..................................................................................140 v 13 THE FIRST MASSIVE FLOCK OF STARLINGS ..................................................150 14 A COFFIN WITH NO AUTOMATIC FEATURES.................................................159 PART II .............................................................................................................................167 15 HAVING AN EROTIC LIFE OUTSIDE OF A MAN..............................................168 16 THE F—ING HOT WATER IS ACTING UP ..........................................................177 17 ATTRACTIVE, YOUNG GIRLS MAKE HIM NERVOUS....................................190 18 LUCK IS A FIGURE OF SPEECH...........................................................................197 19 A HAT CAN BE A LIBERATING THING..............................................................203 20 YOU DON’T KNOW ME EITHER..........................................................................219 21 SECRETS MAKE HER POWERFUL ......................................................................227 22 HER CONFESSIONS WERE NO MORE THAN WHISPERS ...............................242 23 INDIGNATION IS A USELESS EMOTION ...........................................................255 24 WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PALM LEAVES?.......................................................265 25 IF MATRICIDE WERE A PART OF THE FAMILY LEGACY.............................276 26 LIKE BEING DEAD!................................................................................................285 27 THE LAMBS HEAR LIVIA’S WHISTLE ...............................................................297 28 THE SIMPLE STORY IS MORE FRUSTRATING.................................................311 vi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: CONCETTA FAMILY TREE.........................................................................................17 vii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: MAP OF PRATI.............................................................................................................18 Figure 2: MAP OF ROME.............................................................................................................19 Figure 3: MAP OF SICILY ...........................................................................................................20 Figure 4: MAP OF ITALY ............................................................................................................21 viii INTRODUCTION The nature vs. nurture debate, whether genetics or environment shape human character, continues to generate controversy in many forums today. While the scientist tries to determine how much DNA encoding affects abstract traits such as intelligence and personality, politicians of the left and the right lobby for legislation that will either teach young children that a gay gene determines an individual’s sexual orientation or that sexual orientation is a choice, depending on their own view of the debate. The storyteller, too, explores this question, only in the novelist’s case, the method of exploration is through dramatic situations, not scientific experiment. In 1880 Emile Zola, in his influential work The Experimental Novel, called the question of whether heredity or surroundings determine human character the novelist’s “great study”. He wrote, “I consider that the question of heredity has a great influence in the intellectual and passionate manifestations of man. I also attach considerable importance to the surroundings (19).” Later he argued that this reciprocal effect of society on the individual and the individual on society should be the novelist’s chief occupation: “Man is not alone; he lives in society, in a social condition; and consequently, for us novelists, this social condition unceasingly modifies the phenomenon. Indeed our great study is just there, in the reciprocal effect of society on the individual and the individual on society (20).” But if individuals and society truly do reciprocally affect one another, then, not only can the individual’s religious and philosophical preoccupations affect culture, but the culture’s 1 accepted

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