New Project?

For years I've wanted to write a novel or a memoir about my paternal grandfather's family. It will be on some weighty subjects - suicide, mental illness, etc. - and the time has never felt quite right to tackle it. A few months ago, I wrote an entire outline of sorts, but didn't do much more since graduate school took precedence.

Today at our work lunch, my boss asked me what book I planned to write next. I'm already working on my next novel, but I don't have a nonfiction project lined up. Except...maybe I do. Maybe it's time to write this memoir.

I thought fictionalizing it might be the way to go, but the more I ponder the stories I want to tell, the more I realize it needs to be raw and real: it needs to be in my voice, and it needs to be about my life and the lives of my family.

My great-grandparents came to America from Italy in 1908. They had nine children - and two of those children died by suicide. My great-grandmother also died by suicide. That is three from one family. Not only is that unusual, it is absolutely tragic. 

I've struggled with mental illness since high school, and have been on antidepressants since college. Others in my family have also dealt with it. I'm absolutely certain my great-grandmother suffered from mental illness, perhaps as a result of untreated post-partum depression, or grief from losing two babies, or adjusting to life in a new country. I don't know the answers, but I feel like I desperately need to find out.

My great-grandparents bought a farm in 1921 and my brother is now the fourth generation to farm it. I grew up in the same house my great-grandparents in which my great-grandparents and grandparents lived. Memories have burrowed into the very foundations of that house, and there's a deep sadness inextricably tied to the land itself. When my boyfriend first came home with me to visit, he immediately sensed it. Energy, both negative and positive, emanates from the place. 

I've always felt a very special bond with this side of the family. Our lives intersected with them far more than it did my mom's family, or even my grandmother's. Italians tend to be close-knit, and boy, did we ever fit the bill. My dad grew up with his cousins - they were his best friends - and my great-uncles farmed land right beside each other. I grew up visiting great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins, etc., and I spent so much time with my grandparents that I feel as though they were my second parents.

Pietro and Domenica Amateis with their son, John

But something lurks in the bones of this family, and I want...no, I need to find out what it is. I want to break this stigma surrounding mental illness in our family, bring it out into the open, and make it safer for the next generation to reach out for help if they feel it necessary. I have my mother to thank for setting such a wonderful example for me - when she went through a major depression, she found help with a therapist and medication, which meant when I endured the same struggle, I had a role model and a roadmap for help. My daughter also struggles with depression and anxiety, and you bet she's been to see therapists and also takes meds. I am determined not to let mental illness lurk in the darkness.

Ideally, I'd like to go to Italy, visit the "old country," so to speak, and see what I could discover. What were conditions like in that part of the country when my great-grandparents decided to leave? Family lore and mystery surround my great-grandparents, and I don't know what is true and what is not. Maybe I never will. But I must try
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