Each and every author featured in this series has taught me something, and the same can be said for author Rosanna Staffa. In fact, I’ve read this interview several times, and I keep going back to certain sentences, marveling at the fluidity and grace with which Rosanna answers my questions. Rosanna honed her craft in writing essays, plays, and short stories, and her skill also surfaces in her novel writing. One reader commented on The War Ends at Four, her debut novel: “The prose in this novel flows like lyrics as it explores the intricacies of subtle social interactions and the dangers of things left unsaid.” The book has won multiple awards, and rightfully so!

Welcome, Rosanna!

Christina: Congratulations on The War Ends at Four. It’s your debut novel, though you’re no stranger to writing. Why novel writing? What compelled you to write in the genre, and did anything surprise you? Do you approach playwriting and novel writing differently?

Rosanna: Thank you so much for the congratulations. There is no drastic difference between playwriting and writing a novel.  Writing novels and plays both require a narrative flow that readers or audiences can follow. I learned this truth early in my life. My childhood best friend in Italy, Ciccino, had fantastic stories—spinsters and holy men caught off guard and other marvels—but he started in the middle and told them with so many detours that I could never listen to the end. 

We are compelled to pay attention when something is clearly going to happen, and we anticipate the surprise. But I think readers and audience members don’t want to know everything; they need some room to guess. In fact, I’d like them to feel as if they are eavesdropping on the characters. In both mediums, I leave out a little something to make the story porous, so the readers or audience can enter it on their own, as if through a window or a door left ajar.

I think that, as a writer, particularly in narrative, it’s best not to turn back and check on the reader at all times. For readers to get lost in the story, the writer needs to be out of the way, or it’s like a hot date with a parent in the back seat.

I learned early in my life that a bit of drama was essential to create interest. When I was a kid, I noticed that Gianni, who was as unpopular as I was, almost died in a drowning accident and now had lasting glory. Characters in both mediums need to make the reader or audience a bit anxious. It creates sympathy.

I wrote my novel, The War Ends at Four, out of a strong desire to go back in time and experience what I left behind in Italy, but never left me. I looked at the friendly ghosts in my life. Even if my visits to Italy are rare, it’s Italy that visits me, digging its talons in my heart with a vengeance.

The details had to be what my memory wanted, and the specificity of the past did not feel like a good match with a theatre piece. I needed to write it as a story that captured a cast of characters as they moved, as I remembered, through a space I knew, evoking the smells, the fog, the streets. This is impossible in reality, because when I go back, the places and people are different, and so am I. So I went back through my novel.

Ricardo C. Ainslie, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, wrote an illuminating article, Cultural mourning, immigration and engagement, which I read in one breath. It explores how the loss of one’s cultural references sets in motion a paradoxical tension between the desire to understand the new reality and the deep attachment to what is lost. This is the tension that activated my desire to write my novel.

Christina: The novel “explores the quest of a perpetual outsider looking for a true home.” The theme of belonging is common and relatable to many readers. Why did you choose to write about it?

Rosanna: The novel asks questions I wanted to ask myself: What happens when we lose our familiar context? Can we truly move away from our past? The need to remember and the need to be free are the contradictory impulses that negotiate throughout the novel and my life. I was always touched by Chagall, who painted his home, the place he had left behind. There is an ambiguity to the sense of belonging that is hard to define: I am where I am, and also I am not.

The novel began a bit like a hunger. I felt like a dog, digging for a juicy bone. It was messy.

I think that all artists share my sense of separateness and that the impulse to put pen to paper comes from the effort to end an exile from one’s true self. Or at the very least, try to. This image, from  The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig, speaks to me:

daguerreologue

1. an imaginary interview with an old photo of yourself, an enigmatic figure who still lives in the grainy and color-warped house you grew up in, who may well spend a lot of their day wondering where you are and what you’re doing now, like an old grandma whose kids live far away and don’t call much anymore.

I write in a second language, English. Capturing a piece’s energy would be more comfortable in Italian, but there is a freeing quality to using English. Words in my native language are steeped in memory, and memory is not tidy nor polite. Words acquired in childhood resonate with a significance I am not fully aware of, but that deeply affects me. Writing in English is a bit of a mask; it frees me at the core.

The community of writers is the one I recognize as my own and makes me feel whole. I agree with Kafka on the necessity of choosing companions on my journey attentively. As he puts it: Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

Christina: Speaking of your first language, Italian, you were born in Italy, and that heritage is showcased in the book. Do you miss living in Italy? If there were one thing Italy has that you could bring to the United States, what would it be? How much does your main character, Renata, reflect your lived experience?

Rosanna: I have a longing for Italy that I don’t think can be fulfilled. It is a country that I don’t know so well now, even if it’s vivid in my memory. It’s like sitting at a dinner and leaving a conversation mid-sentence for a moment. When you return, everyone has moved on to talk about something else.

It seems odd, but sometimes I truly would like to be woken up by the sound of church bells. I did not enjoy it when I lived in Italy. In fact, I was indignant at the sound, and I questioned its purpose, but now I find myself desiring to hear it. It came into my room like a gust of wind. I knew that someone had climbed alone the steps to the bell tower one by one, and wanted to welcome the day with everybody. When I lived in Italy, what I craved was the unfamiliar, and I read any book that would take me somewhere else. I was a private child, and I found stories in which I could imagine doing and seeing things I was not used to. Like the protagonists, I was brave, fierce, and afraid of nothing, somewhere where nobody knew me, and I was alone, facing the new.

Renata is an imaginary character, but we are close enough that we could share a drink and chat about our shared experiences like old buddies. Like me, she misses home and equally desires to explore her new reality. We did not personally experience World War II, but it deeply affected our lives. We share curiosity about human nature and faith in the power of love.

Christina: Piggybacking on that question—Renata is an acupuncturist, which is something you’re licensed in. Why did you choose to pursue a license, and why craft an acupuncturist as a character? Did you learn anything about yourself by writing Renata?

Rosanna: The novel explores healing in all its forms, particularly the shadows of World War II in an Italian family similar to mine. Being an acupuncturist was to me a perfect profession for my protagonist, as she sought to heal both herself and others.

Like Renata, I chanced on a book about acupuncture in a library. It was like catching a glimpse of a mysterious and marvelous reality, not far away but right under my skin. It spoke of a desire for harmony, active and present in my body, through the meridians. I felt the kindness of the Universe that encouraged me. In this, Renata and I share a similarity.

I studied acupuncture in LA and later in China. I practiced as an acupuncturist in LA, and volunteered at a free detox clinic in Santa Monica. Acupuncture has taught me that we have the power inside ourselves to heal and move forward. It’s not easy to change, but it’s possible.

Renata helped me examine where I hesitated and encouraged me to dig deeper into certain aspects of my life. I could be freer in writing as someone like me, rather than me. I went to places and emotions I might have been hesitant to explore, and Renata gave me the gift of experiencing freely. We are all grateful for this reason to the characters we create.

Christina: Author Rachel M. Harper wrote of The War Ends at Four, “Rosanna Staffa writes with elegance and conviction of the darker sides of life — the pain of loss and regret, the finality of death and of roads not taken — but her true gift as a writer shines in the warmth and agility of her prose, the desire and passions of her characters, and the hope that exudes from these fluid and nimble pages.” What a compliment! How did you find the proper balance between the dark and the light when writing the book?

Rosanna: A truly fabulous compliment! My characters face the setbacks and difficulties life brings, but what drives them is a strong impulse to love, understand, and reach out to each other. They slip and slide and misunderstand signs in the process, but their desire is a powerful driving force. They are honest about their problems, but keen on hope and love. Love has the quality to turn the view of life afresh, like a beautiful piece of music brightens the mood. In the memory of my mind, as a family, rather than crying, we often had a burst of laughter at the madness of life. 

Facing the shadows within the family is central to the novel, but bringing some light, or the possibility of doing so, is essential to me.

Writing a book requires a long-standing affection; the characters and I went through many adventures together over an extended period, and that shared emotion remains encapsulated in the lines. 

Christina: First lines intrigue me, and I love the first line of the book: “Renata secretly lusted for other people’s lives.” The line creates narrative spaces, draws the reader in, and makes us want to read more. How difficult was it to craft that first line? Was any other sentence in the running?

Rosanna: There were other excellent candidates who eloquently made their case to be the first sentence, but I wasn’t convinced. I went back and forth. When I found this line, it was crystal clear that it was the one. There was an unmistakable physical reaction. When I first lived in New York, I remember watching a dancer friend rehearse his performance pieces. I did not know what he was going for, but when he got it, I saw it too. There is a physiological truth to feeling done.

Christina: In your web bio you talk about your shyness, which “was painful in life but turned out to be a gift as a writer. I paid attention and observed.” Observation skills are crucial for capturing humanity in characters. Do you have any tips for those writers who might feel they need a primer for paying attention and observing?

Rosanna: Take walks. Trust your instincts and observe what catches your attention. It’s the small things that speak of your life. As a kid, I wrote in my journal with a vengeance, making something of a day lived in proud isolation. Nothing was happening, but by writing down what I saw—a cat mysteriously going back and forth, Signor Zenere parking his bike in a strange spot that evening, a gust of wind carrying away a shirt hung to dry—the experiences took on a peculiar force. There was a story nesting in what I noticed or a strong emotion. I learned that anything, if observed with attention, releases meaning.

There are occasionally small details that persist. I tell them, you are irrelevant, but they won’t leave. I look at them again. I trust the smell that comes back to me, the detail of the pencil on the floor, like facets of a mystery that will never be truly illuminated but shines through nonetheless. The tiny lights of fireflies do not illuminate the night but make it more interesting and personal. And so much more intriguing.  

I always have a notebook and a pencil with me. When I look back at the notes  I wrote, they sometimes make no sense, yet I still love the tiny sparks that floated through my mind and I tried to catch. These sparks may find a home in a piece of writing. Maybe they will not. They ignited something in that moment. Who knows what it was? The truth about my impulse to write is that when I do, I’m not looking for answers or explanations, and much less a good story. I am desperate to retrace the essence of a memory, an emotion.

Christina: Your work has won multiple awards. How do these awards factor into your definition of literary success?

Rosanna: I am infinitely grateful to them for encouraging me to keep writing, despite the numerous reasons not to. That’s what I treasure about them.

Christina: What’s next for you?

Rosanna: I am completing a new novel about an Italian playwright in America. ‘Teatro’ tells the story of a play and its writer collapsing into each other on the page and in real life.

Rosanna can be found in multiple places!

Website: https://www.rosannastaffa.com/
Facebook: @rosanna.staffa
X: @RosannaStaffa
Instagram: @rosannastaffa

Thanks to Rosanna for agreeing to this interview! Feel to leave a comment!