Many people helped me write this book.
Silvia Valisa, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, answered my first query and set me on the right track with a long, passionate, informative e-mail, which was soon followed by the names of people I should contact as well as copies of Elsa Morante’s hard-to-find early published work. I am deeply grateful to Silvia for this initial as well as for her continual support, her enthusiasm for my project and her generosity in sharing her greatly superior expertise.
My research assistant, the beautiful and talented Veronica Raimo, made persistent phone calls, set up interviews and accompanied me to them, translated and recorded texts, took me on a tour of the San Lorenzo and Testaccio districts of Rome and accompanied me to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, where she charmed recalcitrant and uncooperative librarians into searching archives and producing documents. She also accompanied me to the State Archives in Turin, where again she charmed recalcitrant archivists into producing documents. Mille grazie, Veronica.
I am most thankful to Giulia Ruggiero, who translated Morante’s early stories, Marcello Morante’s memoir and Cesare Garboli’s and Giorgio Agamben’s essays, and who generously and rapidly responded to my many, many queries. Also, to Paola Basirico, my teacher, who patiently tried to improve my mediocre Italian and who graciously allowed me to distract her from lessons in grammar with readings and discussions of stories by Morante, Moravia and Verga (her favorite).
This book would not exist without Carlo Cecchi, Elsa Morante’s coexecutor, who at first was elusive. I telephoned him a dozen times before I realized that, not so surprisingly, there was, on the part of Elsa’s friends and relatives, a certain amount of resistance to me. After all, why would an American who did not speak fluent Italian want to write about Elsa Morante? Just as I was ready to give up, Carlo answered the phone and agreed to see me. To do so, I had to cross the width of Italy. On the day we were to meet for lunch, I was both lost and late (each time I called to say that I was still lost, I could hear increasing irritation creep into his voice). I will never forget how when finally I drove up to the door of his hotel and saw him—a handsome man, dressed entirely in black, a shock of white hair falling over his forehead, looking stern and impatient—my heart sank. Since then, we have spoken and seen each other several times and Carlo has been more than forthcoming and candid with his memories, as well as generous in giving me access to material and allowing me to use his photographs of Elsa. I hope that this account of the woman he so admired and loved will not disappoint him. I am immensely grateful and thank him with all my heart.
For granting interviews, I want to thank Adriana Asti; Alfonso Berardinelli; Bernardo Bertolucci; Ginevra Bompiani; Alain Elkann; Dacia Maraini; Allen Midgette, a newfound friend (thanks to Bernardo Bertolucci) who knew both Elsa and Bill Morrow well; Daniele Morante; Maria Morante; and Paolo Morante. I especially want to thank Patrizia Cavalli with whom I spent several afternoons, including a memorable one sorting through a suitcase filled with photographs.
For their cooperation and help, my thanks also go to Toni Maraini and Alberto Cau at the Fondo Moravia; Mauro Bersani at Einaudi; Luigi Bernabó; Marco Cassini at Minimum Fax; Dr. Margherita Breccia Fratadocchi at the Rare Books and Manuscript Room, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma; Dr. Marsaglia at the State Archives in Turin; Danielle Sigler at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and finally to Flora Ghezzo, assistant professor at Columbia University, who graciously agreed to speak to me about nineteenth-and twentieth-century Italian women writers.
My special thanks to the American Academy in Rome for thrice providing a beautiful roof over my head, and to Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Carmela Franklin, Dana Prescott, and Pina Pasquantonio. I would also like to thank the gatekeeper, Norman Robertson, for cheer, directions and transportation, and, in particular, Romano Migliarino, who notwithstanding the fact that we were late and lost, drove me ten hours to Iesi and back. I also want to thank Terzo Giovanni of Procida for the gift of a lemon.
For their friendship and advice, I am grateful to JoAnne Akalaitis, Anselma dell’Olio, Paul Elie, Louisa Ermelino, Molly Haskell, Shirley Hazzard, Susan Minot, Renata Propper, Maria Tucci, Lu-Ann Walther and Beverley Zabriskie. For still more friendship, advice and for a close reading and rereading of these pages, I am very much indebted to Michelle Huneven and Frances Kiernan. Most of all, I want to express my enormous gratitude to Trent Duffy for his keen-eyed fact checking and masterly editing of this book. As always I thank Georges and Anne Borchardt, my guardian angels and friends. Finally, I thank Terry Karten and Julia Felsenthal.