July 16, 2024 • 33 mins
Jo Piazza is a bestselling author, podcaster and journalist. Her latest novel, “The Sicilian Inheritance,” is based on her own unraveling of a true story about her great-great-grandmother's mysterious death. She talks to Simone and Danielle about all the forms of storytelling she is interested in, how her family has shaped who she is as a writer, and the ways in which fiction and nonfiction intersect in her recent book.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey Bessies, Hello Sunshine. Today we're diving into a tale
that's as gripping as the best true crime mysteries. Imagine
uncovering family secrets so intriguing they lead you on a
journey all the way to Italy to figure them out.
We're thrilled to chat with best selling author, podcaster and
journalist Joe Piazza, who did just that to unravel her
(00:25):
grandmother's mysterious death. Stay tuned for an unforgettable conversation. It's Tuesday,
July sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Simone Boys, and this is the
right side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we
come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten
your day.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Stories. Stories. We have such an emphasis on stories, and
you know, we all have these family stories that we
hear about growing up, whether they're big or small folklore,
like I think we hear whispers from our relatives. Did
you have that?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think every family does. You know, every family has
an interesting story and if you dig deep enough you'll
find it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well. Our guest today took one of those lures and
actually went to Italy. She went to Sicily to explore it.
And through this process of exploration brings to life an
untold story which we are going to dive deep into.
But it really got me thinking about our own family stories.
And someone I know, your grandmother was such a force.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, she was such a legend. She was a black
woman during the Civil rights era, and she left her
mark on her community in a big way. Her name
was Bonnie John's and this is my mom, Sheila's mother.
And when Bonnie was little, she was so poor, she
only had one pair of shoes to wear to school,
and all the kids would make fun of her. I
grew up hearing this story over and over again, and
(01:43):
the moral of the story was that her education was
her way out of that poverty. It was her way
to escape that and so she just invested all in
in her education. And later in life, she actually ran
for public office won a seat on the school board
in Maryland during this seven She was the only black
school board member during integration, and she fought tirelessly for
(02:05):
black students to have access to the same quality of
education as their white peers. And to this day, there
is a building named after my grandmother, Bonnie John's in
my family's community in Maryland. That's so cool. I'd need
a photo of you in front of that building.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Oh, that's a great idea. I got to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I just also want to say that I think that
those values that your grandmother held like come through you
so vibrantly. I see it all the time. My grandmother
Roady is eighty eight years old. She lives in Chicago,
and in the winters, she lives in Florida. Now. Her
family was from Amsterdam, and she grew up during Hitler's Germany,
(02:42):
and so her family heard rumblings of all of this,
but they thought, oh, it could never come all the
way to Holland, it could never make it to Amsterdam.
And it did. She was taken from her home in
the middle of the night at five years old. She
went on a train to a camp called Vesterborg. My
great grandfather was a tailor, and a guy who worked
(03:03):
across the street from him, like their whole lives, had
to join the Nazi Party. He was forced to. He
didn't want to, and he saw one of the kid's
names on a list and said, my great aunt Stella
was going to go to death camp. And so he
tipped my great grandfather off and they paid off the
Nazis to save her life. They stayed at that camp, Investorborg,
(03:26):
which was a work camp, not a death camp. And
it changed the legacy of my family drastically. And so
my grandmother Rody is super active in the Holocaust Museum
and she speaks all over the country. It's really pretty
amazing to see her in that light, because I see
her as like my grandmother that I would go over
to her house and see all of her like old
(03:47):
trinkets and photos, and she would make every meal for
every holiday. They actually made a VR film about her
life last year. The ending scene is all of us
in her living room like dining room table, and there's
over twenty of us and it ends with the idea
that Hitler tried to wipe all these people out, and
(04:09):
look what she has built and the legacy that she
has really built for our family. And so that story,
similar to what you said, Simone, like just permeated my childhood.
And I think when you grow up, regardless of what
that story is, whether it's your own grandmother or somebody else,
it really sort of dictates your values the direction of
(04:31):
your life. And so I think today is going to
be really powerful because there's this matriarchal figure in our guest,
Joe's life who was life changing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well in the same way that you revisited the sites
that meant so much to your family, Danielle, our guest
today retrace the footsteps of a larger than life matriarch
in her family story to uncover the truth about her
great great grandmother's mysterious death. So Joe Piazza is a
best selling author, podcast host, and investigator of not just
(05:02):
her family stories, but other women's stories as well. She's
written multiple books, including Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and
she also hosted Under the Influence, which is this really
fascinating podcast that dives into the business of social media
mom influencers.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
She also had this article in l which is how
I first found her writing, and it's all about how
she gave herself her own engagement rank. So regardless of
your marital status, please go check that out. And her
latest project, The Sicilian Inheritance, is inspired by the story
of Lorenza Marsala, her great great grandmother and Joe's dad
(05:40):
became absolutely obsessed with piecing together what really happened in
her mysterious death. So after he died, Joe came across
an old email from him filled with information about Lorenza,
and that's when she decided to dig into the mystery
really on his behalf.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And through this investigation, she's bringing a Jens Old story
to life. And she's here with us on the show today.
We are in for a wild ride. Welcome to the
bright Side.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You have such a quintessential Italian name, so it's fun
to say Piazza, especially for what we're about to talk
about today.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh my god, totally, totally, and I really love the
enthusiasm that you've said it with. Just like Piazza. But
I mean, like as as everyone knows, like Piazza just
means like town square in Italy. So when you say
Piazza there, they're like, yeah, I know, we're here. We're
just standing here in front of the city Hall. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
We are going to talk all about you and your work, Joe.
I mean, you've centered women in the stories that you
tell as an author. You recently published a book and
podcast about an ancestor of yours, which we are going
to get into. You've also reported on influencer culture in
the show Under the Influence. You've also covered Laura Ingalls
Wilder and the show Wilder. What makes something a Joe
(06:57):
Piazza story.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Oh my gosh, that's a question that my agents are
constantly asking me. They're like, what's your lane? Girlfriend? And
I mean, I actually love the way that you just
framed it, because, to be honest, I've been a journalist
for twenty three years now, I've been writing books for
about thirteen years, and if there's one through line through
it all, it's, you know, women's stories that haven't been
(07:21):
told before, brave and badass women's stories that I think
deserve to be told. And that doesn't always fit neatly
into a genre. It's not just like mystery thriller or
you know, spicy romance, although you know, I like to
write about all those things too, within the context of
badass women. But those are the stories that have always
gotten me excited. For most of human history, we've seen
(07:45):
men writing history, and so to be able to tell
the stories of women really feels like such an honor.
And I also I call myself a storyteller now more
than I do a journalist or an author, even though
I do both of those things. Because I think different
stories want to be told in different genres, and my
biggest goal is to meet the audience where they're at
with a particular story. So I'm like, oh, okay, is
(08:07):
this going to be great in a podcast? Awesome, Let's
do this in audio. Is this going to be good
for a short, fun sub stack? Okay? Great? That is
just as valid as like a novel with a big
publishing house to.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Me, if I may add, I also think that you
take a traditional narrative and you flip it on its head,
because you've done that so many different times. One of
the reasons I found you originally was you wrote an
article in l called why I bought myself an engagement ring?
And that's taking this traditional idea and flipping it on
its head, and you always have such a feminist perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I love that story and it's funny. I mean, I
wrote that almost ten years ago, because I've been married
almost ten years and I wrote it right before I
got married, and I bought you fling. I know, I know, right,
I bought that ring in a Tanzania, And I just
love the idea of flipping that narrative, right, Like, why
as women do we have to wait for men to
buy us this thing, like we need that to move
(09:01):
on to the next stage of our lives. That seemed
ridiculous to me. And by the way, I'm not acting
all high and mighty. It only seemed ridiculous after like
years of bemoaning why I was the last one of
my single friends. Okay, so like I went through all
of the crap, bought myself an engagement ring, and then
essentially just conjured my fiance on a boat in the
Galapagos three months later.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I also see you as a bit of a cultural anthropologist,
because it seems like there is no territory or era
that goes untouched for you, Like you follow your curiosity.
If there's an interesting, badass woman who is flipping the script,
you're going to find her and you're going to cover her.
What have you discovered about womanhood through each of these stories?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You know that we are just so much stronger and
braver than anyone ever gives women credit for, and that
it has been women holding society together at the seams
pretty much since the beginning of society. But it's always
their stories that haven't been told. My favorite nonfiction book
is a little book I wrote called If Nuns Ruled
(10:01):
the World, and it's ten stories of bad ass feminist
nuns who I think nuns have been turned into a
caricature for so long, when really it was a way
to escape the feminist tropes of getting married and being
forced to be a wife and a mother. These women
could continue getting their education. They were running colleges, they
(10:22):
were running hospitals, they were running entire communities and taking
care of the sick and running the economies of these
small villages, especially when so many men were constantly leaving
and going off to wars in Europe, right, no one
ever recognized the nuns. In fact, when I talk to them,
you know, they say, we've really we haven't just been
written out of history. We've been mocked throughout history, because
(10:45):
the easiest way to take away someone's power is to
mock them. And so I think that's one of the
best examples of a narrative that just has been buried
in history, of powerful, strong women that the world doesn't
want to think about.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I love that you also said women that they don't
want to think about, Yeah, because that really is the case.
I cite this statistic all the time because I find
it just wild. But zero point five percent of recorded
history is made up of women's stories. And there are
so many women's stories to share, they just haven't been told,
haven't been shared, haven't been recorded.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Or they have been but then they get lost, they
get buried because not only is it not women writing
down history so often recording history, but it hasn't been
the women archiving history. And so when you think about
the people responsible for maintaining records, it has typically been men,
you know, male bureaucrats, male archivists keeping track of things,
(11:49):
as opposed to women. So it's not just that we
haven't been writing it, it's that we haven't been the
keepers of history.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Joe, we have to take another short break, but we'll
be back in just a minute. Don't go anywhere, and
we're back with Joe Piazza. So your book and your podcast,
your newest one is The Sicilian Inheritance, and it looks
(12:17):
at the suspicious death of one of your ancestors more
than one hundred years ago. And we live in a
true crime obsessed culture, but this is sort of like
a true crime story in your own family. So for
anyone who hasn't listened yet, can you set up the
story for all of us. Who is Lorenza Marsala?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, also, isn't that name so good? If my husband
weren't already fixed, I would have another baby and name
her Lorenza Marsala. Lorenza Marsala is my great great grandmother
on my dad's side from Sicily. And you know, for
my whole life, I've been hearing this story about how
she was the family matriarch and how her husband Antonino
came here to America. All of her sons came here,
(12:57):
they came to make their fortune, left her behind in Sicily,
and she was murdered in Sicily before she could join them.
And my family has a couple of different theories about this.
The men all think that it was it was the
mafia that killed her, because they all seem to think
that they're Tony Soprano. And the women all think that
she was killed because she was a witch and a healer,
(13:18):
because all of my female ancestors think that they're Sicilian witches,
and they're probably right, they really are. But you know,
it was one of those family stories that just kind
of gets told in passing. You know, it's like a
mythology and a lot of my relatives didn't even know
her real name. They're like, just you know, my great grandmother,
my great great grandmother. I've been fascinated by it for
a long time, and so I started writing a fictional
(13:40):
novel called The Sicilian Inheritance, loosely based on Lorenzo's story.
I didn't want to know the real story at that time,
because I was really intently writing during the pandemic, and
I wanted to have an adventure, and I wanted to
write the adventure that I knew we all wanted to have.
I wanted to transport us to Sicily and also to
(14:00):
time this uniquely feminist time in Sicilian history, which I
discovered when I started doing research about the time period,
when you know, hundreds of thousands of men left Sicily
to come to America. Many of the towns were left
to the women and the children, and the women took
the men's jobs, and they started buying and selling land
under their own names and lending money, and they had power,
(14:23):
like real power for the first time in their lives.
And it was this unique feminist moment in Sicilian history
that I had certainly never heard about, that I had
not seen written about a lot in pop culture that
appears in academic papers, but nowhere for a real mass
audience to absorb it. And so that's what I really
wanted to focus on in this book, a modern day
(14:46):
woman going back to unravel this mystery and discovering this
feminist time in Sicilian history, you know, laced with romance,
an adventure, and the most delicious food that you've ever
read about. But then when I finished the book, I
started thinking, well, I would be doing a disservice to
her and also to all of the women like Lorenza
(15:07):
if I didn't actually try to solve her murder in
real life. My husband thought I was joking when I
was like, we should go to Sicily this summer and
solve this murder, And all of a sudden, I bought
plane tickets and he's like, I really just thought you
had had two tequilas and we're kidding about solving a murder.
And I'm like, oh no, we're going with all three
of our children under the age of seven. And so
we took our whole family of five to Sicily to
(15:28):
start researching this murder. And that turned into the Sicilian
Inheritance podcast, which is a true crime adjacent show Unraveling
This century Old Murder.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Did you know how to end the book before you
started writing it or was the ending something that you
discovered in the process.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I love that question because I am not an outliner.
I don't outline my books at all. I sit down
and I literally fly by the seat of my pants.
Other writers apparently call this being a pantser, which I
only recently discovered, and when I heard it, I was like,
pantser meant something so different when I was in junior high.
But okay, yeah, sure, I'm a pants I fly by
(16:08):
the stat of my pants. The only thing I knew
without revealing anything is the twist that happens at the
end of the book. I knew that was going to happen,
and I knew it was going to be a banger,
but I didn't know how we were going to get there,
and so everything else just kind of came to me
along the way. And it's been really interesting because I
did so much research about Sicily for the novel, but
(16:30):
didn't research Lorenzo's actual story while writing the book, because,
like I said, I wanted to be able for it
to be fiction, for the characters to develop, but after
I finished the book, it was turned in, it went
to copy editing. I mean, it was essentially printed and
ready to go to stores when I was investigating the
real murder. There were so many similarities that it is
now completely eerie. And at one point during the podcast,
(16:53):
I actually interview a medium, Marianne DeMarco. She's a Sicilian
American who lives on Long Island, because apparently all on
Long Island, and so she said something, and I'm not
a wo wou person, but she was like, I can
feel all of these Sicilian women, not just her ancestors,
but these women whose stories haven't been told, and they've
just been nudging you along as you've been working on
(17:16):
this book and feeding you information and feeding you stories,
and same with the podcast, and just little nuggets of information.
And I really felt it along the way, like there
were some things that I wrote that I could not
have known were true, that were true. And I still
get chills when I'm thinking about it now. But yeah,
because I do think that those women wanted their stories told.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Can you give us one example of that?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
My god, so many? Okay, So one of my favorite
ones is this character appears in the book She's a
hotel owner who lives in this tiny village called Caltabalessa
in the book, which is based on my family's village
of Culta Balota. So there's a woman who owns a
hotel and her name is just A and it's Juicy
(18:01):
for sure. Now, I had no idea that Justesseppina was
even a name all right, much less that Juicy was
the nickname for that name. I was like, it was
kind of a placeholder, right, Like I knew Giuseppe was
a name, and I knew that they feminized a lot
of names, but I'm like, God, this sounds fun. And
I also like the nickname Juicy really fits her. She's
like this bold brush woman who's like taking control of everything.
And I just kept it and kept it and it
(18:23):
never changed it. And then I eventually found out it
is the most common name in the town where my
family is from for women, and Juicy is indeed the nickname.
And when I was there in March of this year
and I was in the cemetery, it's like every other
grave was a Jusppoina, which was so interesting, Like these
are just things that like kind of got to me
along the way, And I don't know. I don't know
(18:44):
where they came from. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So I want to tap into that a little bit
because the psychic experience is my favorite aspect of this story.
The psychic that you spoke to gave you an incredible
term for Lorenza, and she called her a strong mouthed woman.
How did this story change your perspective on your family's
(19:07):
matriarch and what have you seen passed down through generations
from her now that you know her better.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah. You know, when I first heard the story of
her being killed back in Sicily, you know, I didn't
picture her the way that she actually looks, And I
think I had this like very cultural stereotype of like,
you know, a Sicilian grandma. She's at the stove and
she's like making your sauce, and she's like making your meatballs.
I mean, none of which could I mean, it just
(19:33):
couldn't be further from the truth, when in reality, finally,
when I discovered a picture of her, I'm like, oh
my gosh, that woman's eyes could cut glass. Like she
looks terrifying and powerful and in control. And the fact
that my family didn't know her name, that they didn't
know really anything about her is now shocking to me,
(19:55):
but it wasn't when I first started. It just seemed
kind of normal. But I'm like, why did we passed
down this story of her death and nothing about her life.
When I went back through land records, I discovered that
she was indeed buying and selling land under her own name,
and that maybe she never planned to come to America,
and that you know, she lived in this like little
(20:16):
area of the village, really close to her sister and
close to her close friends. And she's the one that
paid for the passage, not just for her husband to
go to America, but for each and every one of
her sons. Like she was making the money over there.
She was supporting everybody. And you know, there's also some
rumors that she was perhaps a money lender and that
she crossed the wrong people. I mean, she was a
(20:37):
force to be reckoned with. So to hear Mary Anne
say she's a strong mouthed woman, I'm like, oh, my gosh,
how many other strong mouthed women are there in my family?
Like that makes so much sense. We are a family
of strong mouthed women, So of course she was. But
you know, just the fact that we didn't picture her
like that. Again speaks to how much we lose women's
(20:57):
strength and bravery when we're not hearing their stories directly
from them.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
There's so much familiar pride imbued in this story. I mean,
you said that your daughter was a huge inspiration for you.
I know that your dad was always fascinated with this
lore that's in your family.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I know that he always wanted to be a
journalist and he enjoyed researching her and trying to figure
out what happened to her and piecing the story together.
What do you think that he would think of the
book and the podcast now?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think about that a lot. My dad loved piecing
together family history. He wanted to be a journalist. He
wanted to be a writer, and he ended up becoming
a claims attorney instead, the opposite of a journalist, really,
and he always you know, he pushed me to be
a writer. But he was really, really supportive. And he
(21:51):
had really bad muscular dystrophy for the last ten years
of his life and couldn't get around as well as
he used to, and his whole life really became the
computer in a way, and where he could travel around
the world through his research. So he did a lot
of research on ancestry and trying to reach out to
people on Facebook. And while he was sick, he did
(22:12):
make it to Sicily about three or four times, and
you know, he did interviews with people in the town.
A lot of those have been lost because we lost
his computer when he passed away. We couldn't get into anything.
I felt him with me. I mean, again, I sound
very woo woo when I say these things, but you know,
I genuinely felt him, you know, cheering me on as
I was doing this project, and it it really helped
(22:35):
me grieve him in a way that I hadn't grieved
him before, because when he passed away, I had just
gotten married, I just moved across the country, I just
lost my job, and I was pregnant with my first baby.
And grieving is impossible when you're in the midst of
that many life changes at once, and writing this book
and following in his footsteps, and you know, even reading
(22:57):
the few emails and messages from him that I had
left behind, some to me and some to other people.
I mean, I've cried more over his death in the
past two years than I did right after he passed
away nearly a decade ago, because I was finally able
to get that kind of closure. I feel like I've
been in conversation with him while I've been writing this book,
(23:20):
and it's been a really beautiful process.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
You approached this story with two perspectives. There was one
fictional wishes your novel, and then one factual with your podcast.
Why did you make that choice?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Because I think that the story begged to be told
in two different ways, right, And I'm actually really glad
that I did it in this way because they're both
going to reach a different audience, and those audiences may
end up crossing over, but their paths to them will
likely be different. So the Sicilian Inheritance the novel, like
I said, it has been packaged as a delicious, adventurous
(23:57):
beach read. I mean it's on every summer beach read,
which I love. I'm like, yeah, go pick up the book,
read it and by the pool, read it by the beach,
read it while you're ignoring your children. I love that.
And while I did set out to write this delicious adventure,
it has these strong themes of women's agency and women's
ambition and women working together to fight against the patriarchy.
(24:21):
Do I love the idea of someone picking this up
and thinking that they're getting a delicious adventure and then
just being like, oh my god, Yes, I would love
to support other women too. Yes, I love these stories
of ambitious, badass women. And so I think that you know,
by packaging this in an adventure and something that is
very easy to consume and read and is fun, I mean,
(24:43):
first and foremost, I wanted to write a book that
was fun again because I had been reading so many
books that were so good but were so dark, and
so I'm like, I just want to have fun reading again.
And then, you know, for reporting out the real story,
audio completely fun, like the most natural way to do that,
because I find audio such an intimate setting. It is
(25:06):
the best way to transport someone to another location. And
another time, when I knew that I wanted to solve
the real life mystery, I was like, oh, yeah, no,
we're doing this as a podcast. This is like, this
is definitely definitely the right setting for this. I really
wanted to transport us there, to take us I mean,
not just across the ocean, but also travel back through
time to really really understand Lorenza story.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What do you think Lorenzo would think of Sicilian Inheritance?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I think she'd like it, I really do. I mean,
I think, like I said, those women were so I
mean not all women, right, Like we can't say a
blanket statement all the women in Sily, but like so
many of those women were so ambitious and they wanted
much more out of their lives than they were allowed
to have. And so I think, you know, she would
(25:57):
really enjoy getting to read this perhaps alternate ending to
her story. Although I'm not going to ruin the podcast
or the book for anyone, and you can listen while
you read, because they're not at all parallel. There's no spoilers.
But if you get through both of them, the real
life ending of the podcast, there may be some crossover
with what I imagined in the book, which I think
(26:20):
is very very interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Okay, we need to take a quick break, but we'll
be right back with author, journalist, and podcaster Joe Piazza.
And we're back with Joe Piazza. Joe, what did it
mean to you to be Sicilian before you embarked on
(26:44):
this journey and what does it mean to you now?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I mean honestly, everything about that has changed, you know,
very I was proud of my Sicilian heritage in a
very surface kind of way. I was like, I'm proud
to come, you know, from these strong people who left
a life of poverty to come to America. I didn't
(27:09):
know nearly enough about Sicilian history and everything that had
happened on that island for the previous three thousand and
four thousand years, which was one of the most fun
parts about reporting out this book. I mean, Sicily is
an island that has been conquered over and over again,
I mean pretty much by every conquering force tangential to
(27:30):
the Mediterranean. It's why their food is so good, to
be honest. But there are also people that, you know,
have had to remain strong in the force of opposition,
but also maintain a tight community in the face of opposition,
including the women. And it is a history filled with
strong women who held their families together as the island
(27:51):
was being plundered over and over again, as the men
were being sent away, as the men were being killed,
was always the women who held these communities together. And
that's what I think about. I mean, that's my biggest takeaway.
I'm so proud of being a Sicilian American now in
a way that I'm like it was fine before, great,
but like now I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, I'm
getting my first tattoo. Guys, actually, wait, we love this.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So Brooke Baldwin came on and told us about her
bad girl era getting tattoos. What is your tattoo?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Gonna say, my gosh, I'm getting my first one at
age forty four, and I'm getting the Medusa from the
Sicilian flag because we talk about Medusa a little bit
in the book, and we talk a lot in the
book about how the Greek myths, many of them originated
it justly because Sicily was part of Greece, right, And
I kind of flipped the narrative of Medusa on its
head and say was she a monster? Or was she
(28:40):
just sick of men come into her house?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Was she a badass woman? Who is just like I
have had enough and I will not be treated like this.
And I love the fact that Medusa is on the
Sicilian flag, and so yeah, I'll send everyone pictures when
it's done. I'm so excited. I think that I'm doing
it on my forearm, but I'm not sure. So we've
been drawing practice tattoos on different places in my body
and deciding how we feel about it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Wow, this is a big deal, is we? Meaning you
and your husband, me.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
And my husband, and also we are we're up here
in the cast skills right now, and one of our
best friends is an actual artist and a children's book illustrator.
And every time I've had like one catchuo, I'm like Steve,
and can you draw them a dusa on my arm?
And then he does, and then he does. My mom
is up here with us, helping us with our kids,
and she's sixty nine years old, and I was like, Mom,
I'm gonna get my first tattoo. I just generally felt
(29:30):
like she thought tattoos were kind of tacky and she
wasn't into them. And she's like, I want a tattoo too,
and I'm like what And she's like, I would like
Denari's Tigerian's dragon from Game of Thrones, and I'm like, really,
tracing Piazza, really like this is who you are right now.
So we're getting our tattoos together. Actually as a mother
daughter tattoo session.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's so Special's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Actually, this is something that I never would have envisioned
for us years. Like I feel a new book coming on.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I feel like this is the start of a new
new book, news a podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, Shoe.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
One of the things that I'm hearing from you is
that you're sort of leaning into this theme of adventure
even now that you're home from Sicily. Is that something
that came from this experience in this trip or you've
always been like this.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
No, I've definitely always been like this, for sure. And
I also married someone who was like this right Like
I got married when I was thirty five years old.
I didn't meet Nick until I was thirty four. We
were both journalists, Like I said, we met on a
boat in the Galapagos Islands, like I married someone who
loved to travel. Our fourth date was in Paris. We
got engaged in three months, Like we had this whirlwind romance.
(30:40):
You know, I wanted to be with someone who wanted
to have these adventures with me, who wanted to, you know,
have these adventures with our children, because even though they're
so little and they may not remember the details, I
think they'll remember the spirit of it. And that's what
I think about all the time. But even though I've
always been like this. I wrote this piece for Cosmo
about big Sicilian energy, and like I said, I'm now
(31:01):
a woman in my mid forties and being in Sicily.
These women are strong mouthed women. They are confident. They
are just walking down the beach wearing their bikinis, smoking
their cigarettes and gossiping about Antonio over there. And so
I'm like, I just I love their confidence and their boldness.
And like, while I've always been adventurous, I do feel
(31:22):
like I've started to lose some of that confidence, in
that boldness, you know, just as I've gotten a little
bit older. And that reminded me that there's no reason
to lose any of it. And I feel more confident
and comfortable in my body now than I ever have,
and more inspired to just be a bold and brash
presence in the world. And that is something that I
(31:44):
think came from working on this project and being in
Sicily so many times.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Well, I think you've always been a strong mouthed woman,
and maybe now you just have a term for it.
So thank you for sharing all those strong words with
us today. We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Thank you, Joe, I love it. This was so much fun. Guys,
I could talk to you forever. Oh same, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
You're gonna have to come back.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Joe Piazza is an author, journalist, and podcaster. You can
listen to our latest podcast, The Sicilian Inheritance, on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, celebrity fitness trainer Jeanette
Jenkins is here to talk health and fitness for another
iteration of Wellness Wednesday. Listen and Follow the bright Side
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Tiktok'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro v Ay.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
See you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Hey Bessies, Hello Sunshine. Today we're diving into a tale
that's as gripping as the best true crime mysteries. Imagine
uncovering family secrets so intriguing they lead you on a
journey all the way to Italy to figure them out.
We're thrilled to chat with best selling author, podcaster and
journalist Joe Piazza, who did just that to unravel her
(00:25):
grandmother's mysterious death. Stay tuned for an unforgettable conversation. It's Tuesday,
July sixteenth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Simone Boys, and this is the
right side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we
come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten
your day.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Stories. Stories. We have such an emphasis on stories, and
you know, we all have these family stories that we
hear about growing up, whether they're big or small folklore,
like I think we hear whispers from our relatives. Did
you have that?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think every family does. You know, every family has
an interesting story and if you dig deep enough you'll
find it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well. Our guest today took one of those lures and
actually went to Italy. She went to Sicily to explore it.
And through this process of exploration brings to life an
untold story which we are going to dive deep into.
But it really got me thinking about our own family stories.
And someone I know, your grandmother was such a force.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Oh, she was such a legend. She was a black
woman during the Civil rights era, and she left her
mark on her community in a big way. Her name
was Bonnie John's and this is my mom, Sheila's mother.
And when Bonnie was little, she was so poor, she
only had one pair of shoes to wear to school,
and all the kids would make fun of her. I
grew up hearing this story over and over again, and
(01:43):
the moral of the story was that her education was
her way out of that poverty. It was her way
to escape that and so she just invested all in
in her education. And later in life, she actually ran
for public office won a seat on the school board
in Maryland during this seven She was the only black
school board member during integration, and she fought tirelessly for
(02:05):
black students to have access to the same quality of
education as their white peers. And to this day, there
is a building named after my grandmother, Bonnie John's in
my family's community in Maryland. That's so cool. I'd need
a photo of you in front of that building.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Oh, that's a great idea. I got to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I just also want to say that I think that
those values that your grandmother held like come through you
so vibrantly. I see it all the time. My grandmother
Roady is eighty eight years old. She lives in Chicago,
and in the winters, she lives in Florida. Now. Her
family was from Amsterdam, and she grew up during Hitler's Germany,
(02:42):
and so her family heard rumblings of all of this,
but they thought, oh, it could never come all the
way to Holland, it could never make it to Amsterdam.
And it did. She was taken from her home in
the middle of the night at five years old. She
went on a train to a camp called Vesterborg. My
great grandfather was a tailor, and a guy who worked
(03:03):
across the street from him, like their whole lives, had
to join the Nazi Party. He was forced to. He
didn't want to, and he saw one of the kid's
names on a list and said, my great aunt Stella
was going to go to death camp. And so he
tipped my great grandfather off and they paid off the
Nazis to save her life. They stayed at that camp, Investorborg,
(03:26):
which was a work camp, not a death camp. And
it changed the legacy of my family drastically. And so
my grandmother Rody is super active in the Holocaust Museum
and she speaks all over the country. It's really pretty
amazing to see her in that light, because I see
her as like my grandmother that I would go over
to her house and see all of her like old
(03:47):
trinkets and photos, and she would make every meal for
every holiday. They actually made a VR film about her
life last year. The ending scene is all of us
in her living room like dining room table, and there's
over twenty of us and it ends with the idea
that Hitler tried to wipe all these people out, and
(04:09):
look what she has built and the legacy that she
has really built for our family. And so that story,
similar to what you said, Simone, like just permeated my childhood.
And I think when you grow up, regardless of what
that story is, whether it's your own grandmother or somebody else,
it really sort of dictates your values the direction of
(04:31):
your life. And so I think today is going to
be really powerful because there's this matriarchal figure in our guest,
Joe's life who was life changing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well in the same way that you revisited the sites
that meant so much to your family, Danielle, our guest
today retrace the footsteps of a larger than life matriarch
in her family story to uncover the truth about her
great great grandmother's mysterious death. So Joe Piazza is a
best selling author, podcast host, and investigator of not just
(05:02):
her family stories, but other women's stories as well. She's
written multiple books, including Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, and
she also hosted Under the Influence, which is this really
fascinating podcast that dives into the business of social media
mom influencers.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
She also had this article in l which is how
I first found her writing, and it's all about how
she gave herself her own engagement rank. So regardless of
your marital status, please go check that out. And her
latest project, The Sicilian Inheritance, is inspired by the story
of Lorenza Marsala, her great great grandmother and Joe's dad
(05:40):
became absolutely obsessed with piecing together what really happened in
her mysterious death. So after he died, Joe came across
an old email from him filled with information about Lorenza,
and that's when she decided to dig into the mystery
really on his behalf.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And through this investigation, she's bringing a Jens Old story
to life. And she's here with us on the show today.
We are in for a wild ride. Welcome to the
bright Side.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You have such a quintessential Italian name, so it's fun
to say Piazza, especially for what we're about to talk
about today.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh my god, totally, totally, and I really love the
enthusiasm that you've said it with. Just like Piazza. But
I mean, like as as everyone knows, like Piazza just
means like town square in Italy. So when you say
Piazza there, they're like, yeah, I know, we're here. We're
just standing here in front of the city Hall. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
We are going to talk all about you and your work, Joe.
I mean, you've centered women in the stories that you
tell as an author. You recently published a book and
podcast about an ancestor of yours, which we are going
to get into. You've also reported on influencer culture in
the show Under the Influence. You've also covered Laura Ingalls
Wilder and the show Wilder. What makes something a Joe
(06:57):
Piazza story.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Oh my gosh, that's a question that my agents are
constantly asking me. They're like, what's your lane? Girlfriend? And
I mean, I actually love the way that you just
framed it, because, to be honest, I've been a journalist
for twenty three years now, I've been writing books for
about thirteen years, and if there's one through line through
it all, it's, you know, women's stories that haven't been
(07:21):
told before, brave and badass women's stories that I think
deserve to be told. And that doesn't always fit neatly
into a genre. It's not just like mystery thriller or
you know, spicy romance, although you know, I like to
write about all those things too, within the context of
badass women. But those are the stories that have always
gotten me excited. For most of human history, we've seen
(07:45):
men writing history, and so to be able to tell
the stories of women really feels like such an honor.
And I also I call myself a storyteller now more
than I do a journalist or an author, even though
I do both of those things. Because I think different
stories want to be told in different genres, and my
biggest goal is to meet the audience where they're at
with a particular story. So I'm like, oh, okay, is
(08:07):
this going to be great in a podcast? Awesome, Let's
do this in audio. Is this going to be good
for a short, fun sub stack? Okay? Great? That is
just as valid as like a novel with a big
publishing house to.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Me, if I may add, I also think that you
take a traditional narrative and you flip it on its head,
because you've done that so many different times. One of
the reasons I found you originally was you wrote an
article in l called why I bought myself an engagement ring?
And that's taking this traditional idea and flipping it on
its head, and you always have such a feminist perspective.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I love that story and it's funny. I mean, I
wrote that almost ten years ago, because I've been married
almost ten years and I wrote it right before I
got married, and I bought you fling. I know, I know, right,
I bought that ring in a Tanzania, And I just
love the idea of flipping that narrative, right, Like, why
as women do we have to wait for men to
buy us this thing, like we need that to move
(09:01):
on to the next stage of our lives. That seemed
ridiculous to me. And by the way, I'm not acting
all high and mighty. It only seemed ridiculous after like
years of bemoaning why I was the last one of
my single friends. Okay, so like I went through all
of the crap, bought myself an engagement ring, and then
essentially just conjured my fiance on a boat in the
Galapagos three months later.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I also see you as a bit of a cultural anthropologist,
because it seems like there is no territory or era
that goes untouched for you, Like you follow your curiosity.
If there's an interesting, badass woman who is flipping the script,
you're going to find her and you're going to cover her.
What have you discovered about womanhood through each of these stories?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You know that we are just so much stronger and
braver than anyone ever gives women credit for, and that
it has been women holding society together at the seams
pretty much since the beginning of society. But it's always
their stories that haven't been told. My favorite nonfiction book
is a little book I wrote called If Nuns Ruled
(10:01):
the World, and it's ten stories of bad ass feminist
nuns who I think nuns have been turned into a
caricature for so long, when really it was a way
to escape the feminist tropes of getting married and being
forced to be a wife and a mother. These women
could continue getting their education. They were running colleges, they
(10:22):
were running hospitals, they were running entire communities and taking
care of the sick and running the economies of these
small villages, especially when so many men were constantly leaving
and going off to wars in Europe, right, no one
ever recognized the nuns. In fact, when I talk to them,
you know, they say, we've really we haven't just been
written out of history. We've been mocked throughout history, because
(10:45):
the easiest way to take away someone's power is to
mock them. And so I think that's one of the
best examples of a narrative that just has been buried
in history, of powerful, strong women that the world doesn't
want to think about.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I love that you also said women that they don't
want to think about, Yeah, because that really is the case.
I cite this statistic all the time because I find
it just wild. But zero point five percent of recorded
history is made up of women's stories. And there are
so many women's stories to share, they just haven't been told,
haven't been shared, haven't been recorded.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Or they have been but then they get lost, they
get buried because not only is it not women writing
down history so often recording history, but it hasn't been
the women archiving history. And so when you think about
the people responsible for maintaining records, it has typically been men,
you know, male bureaucrats, male archivists keeping track of things,
(11:49):
as opposed to women. So it's not just that we
haven't been writing it, it's that we haven't been the
keepers of history.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Joe, we have to take another short break, but we'll
be back in just a minute. Don't go anywhere, and
we're back with Joe Piazza. So your book and your podcast,
your newest one is The Sicilian Inheritance, and it looks
(12:17):
at the suspicious death of one of your ancestors more
than one hundred years ago. And we live in a
true crime obsessed culture, but this is sort of like
a true crime story in your own family. So for
anyone who hasn't listened yet, can you set up the
story for all of us. Who is Lorenza Marsala?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yes, also, isn't that name so good? If my husband
weren't already fixed, I would have another baby and name
her Lorenza Marsala. Lorenza Marsala is my great great grandmother
on my dad's side from Sicily. And you know, for
my whole life, I've been hearing this story about how
she was the family matriarch and how her husband Antonino
came here to America. All of her sons came here,
(12:57):
they came to make their fortune, left her behind in Sicily,
and she was murdered in Sicily before she could join them.
And my family has a couple of different theories about this.
The men all think that it was it was the
mafia that killed her, because they all seem to think
that they're Tony Soprano. And the women all think that
she was killed because she was a witch and a healer,
(13:18):
because all of my female ancestors think that they're Sicilian witches,
and they're probably right, they really are. But you know,
it was one of those family stories that just kind
of gets told in passing. You know, it's like a
mythology and a lot of my relatives didn't even know
her real name. They're like, just you know, my great grandmother,
my great great grandmother. I've been fascinated by it for
a long time, and so I started writing a fictional
(13:40):
novel called The Sicilian Inheritance, loosely based on Lorenzo's story.
I didn't want to know the real story at that time,
because I was really intently writing during the pandemic, and
I wanted to have an adventure, and I wanted to
write the adventure that I knew we all wanted to have.
I wanted to transport us to Sicily and also to
(14:00):
time this uniquely feminist time in Sicilian history, which I
discovered when I started doing research about the time period,
when you know, hundreds of thousands of men left Sicily
to come to America. Many of the towns were left
to the women and the children, and the women took
the men's jobs, and they started buying and selling land
under their own names and lending money, and they had power,
(14:23):
like real power for the first time in their lives.
And it was this unique feminist moment in Sicilian history
that I had certainly never heard about, that I had
not seen written about a lot in pop culture that
appears in academic papers, but nowhere for a real mass
audience to absorb it. And so that's what I really
wanted to focus on in this book, a modern day
(14:46):
woman going back to unravel this mystery and discovering this
feminist time in Sicilian history, you know, laced with romance,
an adventure, and the most delicious food that you've ever
read about. But then when I finished the book, I
started thinking, well, I would be doing a disservice to
her and also to all of the women like Lorenza
(15:07):
if I didn't actually try to solve her murder in
real life. My husband thought I was joking when I
was like, we should go to Sicily this summer and
solve this murder, And all of a sudden, I bought
plane tickets and he's like, I really just thought you
had had two tequilas and we're kidding about solving a murder.
And I'm like, oh no, we're going with all three
of our children under the age of seven. And so
we took our whole family of five to Sicily to
(15:28):
start researching this murder. And that turned into the Sicilian
Inheritance podcast, which is a true crime adjacent show Unraveling
This century Old Murder.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Did you know how to end the book before you
started writing it or was the ending something that you
discovered in the process.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I love that question because I am not an outliner.
I don't outline my books at all. I sit down
and I literally fly by the seat of my pants.
Other writers apparently call this being a pantser, which I
only recently discovered, and when I heard it, I was like,
pantser meant something so different when I was in junior high.
But okay, yeah, sure, I'm a pants I fly by
(16:08):
the stat of my pants. The only thing I knew
without revealing anything is the twist that happens at the
end of the book. I knew that was going to happen,
and I knew it was going to be a banger,
but I didn't know how we were going to get there,
and so everything else just kind of came to me
along the way. And it's been really interesting because I
did so much research about Sicily for the novel, but
(16:30):
didn't research Lorenzo's actual story while writing the book, because,
like I said, I wanted to be able for it
to be fiction, for the characters to develop, but after
I finished the book, it was turned in, it went
to copy editing. I mean, it was essentially printed and
ready to go to stores when I was investigating the
real murder. There were so many similarities that it is
now completely eerie. And at one point during the podcast,
(16:53):
I actually interview a medium, Marianne DeMarco. She's a Sicilian
American who lives on Long Island, because apparently all on
Long Island, and so she said something, and I'm not
a wo wou person, but she was like, I can
feel all of these Sicilian women, not just her ancestors,
but these women whose stories haven't been told, and they've
just been nudging you along as you've been working on
(17:16):
this book and feeding you information and feeding you stories,
and same with the podcast, and just little nuggets of information.
And I really felt it along the way, like there
were some things that I wrote that I could not
have known were true, that were true. And I still
get chills when I'm thinking about it now. But yeah,
because I do think that those women wanted their stories told.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Can you give us one example of that?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
My god, so many? Okay, So one of my favorite
ones is this character appears in the book She's a
hotel owner who lives in this tiny village called Caltabalessa
in the book, which is based on my family's village
of Culta Balota. So there's a woman who owns a
hotel and her name is just A and it's Juicy
(18:01):
for sure. Now, I had no idea that Justesseppina was
even a name all right, much less that Juicy was
the nickname for that name. I was like, it was
kind of a placeholder, right, Like I knew Giuseppe was
a name, and I knew that they feminized a lot
of names, but I'm like, God, this sounds fun. And
I also like the nickname Juicy really fits her. She's
like this bold brush woman who's like taking control of everything.
And I just kept it and kept it and it
(18:23):
never changed it. And then I eventually found out it
is the most common name in the town where my
family is from for women, and Juicy is indeed the nickname.
And when I was there in March of this year
and I was in the cemetery, it's like every other
grave was a Jusppoina, which was so interesting, Like these
are just things that like kind of got to me
along the way, And I don't know. I don't know
(18:44):
where they came from. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So I want to tap into that a little bit
because the psychic experience is my favorite aspect of this story.
The psychic that you spoke to gave you an incredible
term for Lorenza, and she called her a strong mouthed woman.
How did this story change your perspective on your family's
(19:07):
matriarch and what have you seen passed down through generations
from her now that you know her better.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah. You know, when I first heard the story of
her being killed back in Sicily, you know, I didn't
picture her the way that she actually looks, And I
think I had this like very cultural stereotype of like,
you know, a Sicilian grandma. She's at the stove and
she's like making your sauce, and she's like making your meatballs.
I mean, none of which could I mean, it just
(19:33):
couldn't be further from the truth, when in reality, finally,
when I discovered a picture of her, I'm like, oh
my gosh, that woman's eyes could cut glass. Like she
looks terrifying and powerful and in control. And the fact
that my family didn't know her name, that they didn't
know really anything about her is now shocking to me,
(19:55):
but it wasn't when I first started. It just seemed
kind of normal. But I'm like, why did we passed
down this story of her death and nothing about her life.
When I went back through land records, I discovered that
she was indeed buying and selling land under her own name,
and that maybe she never planned to come to America,
and that you know, she lived in this like little
(20:16):
area of the village, really close to her sister and
close to her close friends. And she's the one that
paid for the passage, not just for her husband to
go to America, but for each and every one of
her sons. Like she was making the money over there.
She was supporting everybody. And you know, there's also some
rumors that she was perhaps a money lender and that
she crossed the wrong people. I mean, she was a
(20:37):
force to be reckoned with. So to hear Mary Anne
say she's a strong mouthed woman, I'm like, oh, my gosh,
how many other strong mouthed women are there in my family?
Like that makes so much sense. We are a family
of strong mouthed women, So of course she was. But
you know, just the fact that we didn't picture her
like that. Again speaks to how much we lose women's
(20:57):
strength and bravery when we're not hearing their stories directly
from them.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
There's so much familiar pride imbued in this story. I mean,
you said that your daughter was a huge inspiration for you.
I know that your dad was always fascinated with this
lore that's in your family.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I know that he always wanted to be a
journalist and he enjoyed researching her and trying to figure
out what happened to her and piecing the story together.
What do you think that he would think of the
book and the podcast now?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I think about that a lot. My dad loved piecing
together family history. He wanted to be a journalist. He
wanted to be a writer, and he ended up becoming
a claims attorney instead, the opposite of a journalist, really,
and he always you know, he pushed me to be
a writer. But he was really, really supportive. And he
(21:51):
had really bad muscular dystrophy for the last ten years
of his life and couldn't get around as well as
he used to, and his whole life really became the
computer in a way, and where he could travel around
the world through his research. So he did a lot
of research on ancestry and trying to reach out to
people on Facebook. And while he was sick, he did
(22:12):
make it to Sicily about three or four times, and
you know, he did interviews with people in the town.
A lot of those have been lost because we lost
his computer when he passed away. We couldn't get into anything.
I felt him with me. I mean, again, I sound
very woo woo when I say these things, but you know,
I genuinely felt him, you know, cheering me on as
I was doing this project, and it it really helped
(22:35):
me grieve him in a way that I hadn't grieved
him before, because when he passed away, I had just
gotten married, I just moved across the country, I just
lost my job, and I was pregnant with my first baby.
And grieving is impossible when you're in the midst of
that many life changes at once, and writing this book
and following in his footsteps, and you know, even reading
(22:57):
the few emails and messages from him that I had
left behind, some to me and some to other people.
I mean, I've cried more over his death in the
past two years than I did right after he passed
away nearly a decade ago, because I was finally able
to get that kind of closure. I feel like I've
been in conversation with him while I've been writing this book,
(23:20):
and it's been a really beautiful process.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
You approached this story with two perspectives. There was one
fictional wishes your novel, and then one factual with your podcast.
Why did you make that choice?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Because I think that the story begged to be told
in two different ways, right, And I'm actually really glad
that I did it in this way because they're both
going to reach a different audience, and those audiences may
end up crossing over, but their paths to them will
likely be different. So the Sicilian Inheritance the novel, like
I said, it has been packaged as a delicious, adventurous
(23:57):
beach read. I mean it's on every summer beach read,
which I love. I'm like, yeah, go pick up the book,
read it and by the pool, read it by the beach,
read it while you're ignoring your children. I love that.
And while I did set out to write this delicious adventure,
it has these strong themes of women's agency and women's
ambition and women working together to fight against the patriarchy.
(24:21):
Do I love the idea of someone picking this up
and thinking that they're getting a delicious adventure and then
just being like, oh my god, Yes, I would love
to support other women too. Yes, I love these stories
of ambitious, badass women. And so I think that you know,
by packaging this in an adventure and something that is
very easy to consume and read and is fun, I mean,
(24:43):
first and foremost, I wanted to write a book that
was fun again because I had been reading so many
books that were so good but were so dark, and
so I'm like, I just want to have fun reading again.
And then, you know, for reporting out the real story,
audio completely fun, like the most natural way to do that,
because I find audio such an intimate setting. It is
(25:06):
the best way to transport someone to another location. And
another time, when I knew that I wanted to solve
the real life mystery, I was like, oh, yeah, no,
we're doing this as a podcast. This is like, this
is definitely definitely the right setting for this. I really
wanted to transport us there, to take us I mean,
not just across the ocean, but also travel back through
time to really really understand Lorenza story.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
What do you think Lorenzo would think of Sicilian Inheritance?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I think she'd like it, I really do. I mean,
I think, like I said, those women were so I
mean not all women, right, Like we can't say a
blanket statement all the women in Sily, but like so
many of those women were so ambitious and they wanted
much more out of their lives than they were allowed
to have. And so I think, you know, she would
(25:57):
really enjoy getting to read this perhaps alternate ending to
her story. Although I'm not going to ruin the podcast
or the book for anyone, and you can listen while
you read, because they're not at all parallel. There's no spoilers.
But if you get through both of them, the real
life ending of the podcast, there may be some crossover
with what I imagined in the book, which I think
(26:20):
is very very interesting.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Okay, we need to take a quick break, but we'll
be right back with author, journalist, and podcaster Joe Piazza.
And we're back with Joe Piazza. Joe, what did it
mean to you to be Sicilian before you embarked on
(26:44):
this journey and what does it mean to you now?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I mean honestly, everything about that has changed, you know,
very I was proud of my Sicilian heritage in a
very surface kind of way. I was like, I'm proud
to come, you know, from these strong people who left
a life of poverty to come to America. I didn't
(27:09):
know nearly enough about Sicilian history and everything that had
happened on that island for the previous three thousand and
four thousand years, which was one of the most fun
parts about reporting out this book. I mean, Sicily is
an island that has been conquered over and over again,
I mean pretty much by every conquering force tangential to
(27:30):
the Mediterranean. It's why their food is so good, to
be honest. But there are also people that, you know,
have had to remain strong in the force of opposition,
but also maintain a tight community in the face of opposition,
including the women. And it is a history filled with
strong women who held their families together as the island
(27:51):
was being plundered over and over again, as the men
were being sent away, as the men were being killed,
was always the women who held these communities together. And
that's what I think about. I mean, that's my biggest takeaway.
I'm so proud of being a Sicilian American now in
a way that I'm like it was fine before, great,
but like now I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, I'm
getting my first tattoo. Guys, actually, wait, we love this.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So Brooke Baldwin came on and told us about her
bad girl era getting tattoos. What is your tattoo?
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Gonna say, my gosh, I'm getting my first one at
age forty four, and I'm getting the Medusa from the
Sicilian flag because we talk about Medusa a little bit
in the book, and we talk a lot in the
book about how the Greek myths, many of them originated
it justly because Sicily was part of Greece, right, And
I kind of flipped the narrative of Medusa on its
head and say was she a monster? Or was she
(28:40):
just sick of men come into her house?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Was she a badass woman? Who is just like I
have had enough and I will not be treated like this.
And I love the fact that Medusa is on the
Sicilian flag, and so yeah, I'll send everyone pictures when
it's done. I'm so excited. I think that I'm doing
it on my forearm, but I'm not sure. So we've
been drawing practice tattoos on different places in my body
and deciding how we feel about it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Wow, this is a big deal, is we? Meaning you
and your husband, me.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
And my husband, and also we are we're up here
in the cast skills right now, and one of our
best friends is an actual artist and a children's book illustrator.
And every time I've had like one catchuo, I'm like Steve,
and can you draw them a dusa on my arm?
And then he does, and then he does. My mom
is up here with us, helping us with our kids,
and she's sixty nine years old, and I was like, Mom,
I'm gonna get my first tattoo. I just generally felt
(29:30):
like she thought tattoos were kind of tacky and she
wasn't into them. And she's like, I want a tattoo too,
and I'm like what And she's like, I would like
Denari's Tigerian's dragon from Game of Thrones, and I'm like, really,
tracing Piazza, really like this is who you are right now.
So we're getting our tattoos together. Actually as a mother
daughter tattoo session.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's so Special's really exciting.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Actually, this is something that I never would have envisioned
for us years. Like I feel a new book coming on.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I feel like this is the start of a new
new book, news a podcast.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, Shoe.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
One of the things that I'm hearing from you is
that you're sort of leaning into this theme of adventure
even now that you're home from Sicily. Is that something
that came from this experience in this trip or you've
always been like this.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
No, I've definitely always been like this, for sure. And
I also married someone who was like this right Like
I got married when I was thirty five years old.
I didn't meet Nick until I was thirty four. We
were both journalists, Like I said, we met on a
boat in the Galapagos Islands, like I married someone who
loved to travel. Our fourth date was in Paris. We
got engaged in three months, Like we had this whirlwind romance.
(30:40):
You know, I wanted to be with someone who wanted
to have these adventures with me, who wanted to, you know,
have these adventures with our children, because even though they're
so little and they may not remember the details, I
think they'll remember the spirit of it. And that's what
I think about all the time. But even though I've
always been like this. I wrote this piece for Cosmo
about big Sicilian energy, and like I said, I'm now
(31:01):
a woman in my mid forties and being in Sicily.
These women are strong mouthed women. They are confident. They
are just walking down the beach wearing their bikinis, smoking
their cigarettes and gossiping about Antonio over there. And so
I'm like, I just I love their confidence and their boldness.
And like, while I've always been adventurous, I do feel
(31:22):
like I've started to lose some of that confidence, in
that boldness, you know, just as I've gotten a little
bit older. And that reminded me that there's no reason
to lose any of it. And I feel more confident
and comfortable in my body now than I ever have,
and more inspired to just be a bold and brash
presence in the world. And that is something that I
(31:44):
think came from working on this project and being in
Sicily so many times.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Well, I think you've always been a strong mouthed woman,
and maybe now you just have a term for it.
So thank you for sharing all those strong words with
us today. We really appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Thank you, Joe, I love it. This was so much fun. Guys,
I could talk to you forever. Oh same, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
You're gonna have to come back.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Joe Piazza is an author, journalist, and podcaster. You can
listen to our latest podcast, The Sicilian Inheritance, on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, celebrity fitness trainer Jeanette
Jenkins is here to talk health and fitness for another
iteration of Wellness Wednesday. Listen and Follow the bright Side
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Tiktok'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro v Ay.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
See you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Keep looking on the bright side.
Hosts And Creators
Simone Boyce
Danielle Robay
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