Author-Cirillo

Italian American Press

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Robert Cirillo The Seven Golden Apples

Author Interview

What is the most important attribute of your book? I have the impression that story-telling is a dying art and that consequently a lot of wonderful stories are at risk. The most important attribute of my book, I think, is that it preserves a beautiful tradition. It is, after all, a treasured part of my family’s heritage. Why should someone read it? Anyone who likes a good old-fashioned adventure story will, I hope, enjoy the story, and Italian-American readers might enjoy the story all the more because it can bring them closer to their roots and acquaint them with an aspect of their Italian heritage that they were most probably unfamiliar with. What were the challenges in converting an oral folk tale into a written story. Those who have ever tried to convert an oral tradition into written form know that it is quite challenging. I ended up embellishing the story considerably and adding literary techniques such as foreshadowing and deeper characterization of the principal personages, but I changed nothing in the plot. When I had finished composing the story I was surprised at its length. It had become more of a novella than a short story. This was very encouraging and I decided to make a real project of it. Since no fairytale is complete without pictures, I decided to find an illustrator. I spent considerable time thinking about which scenes in the story best lent themselves to illustration, and then I meticulously designed the pictures. Fortunately, my illustrator was both talented and patient. Most of the illustrations had to be redone several times before I was finally satisfied. After the illustrations were ready, I wrote a nice preamble explaining the history of the folktale. What was one of the most memorable experiences in Calabria in searching for your family records? Being greeted by the same young policeman I had met the day before. He smiled and escorted me inside to meet the young lady who was responsible for public records. She actually had a bachelor’s degree in history and enjoyed researching the past. This really raised my hopes, and I was impressed that the Italian government would have enough respect for her position to hire a qualified historian. What search methods did you use in Calabria? The public records office in town, the church’s old baptismal registers, the World War I monument with names of the fallen soldiers, and cemetery records.

What inspired you to write your book? I would say that there are three things that inspired me to write the book. First, I had told the story many times to children and adults and they had always reacted very enthusiastically and suggested that I write the story down. Second, I am the only one of my siblings who really remembers the story, and I didn't want a tale that had been in the family for at least four generations to be forever lost. Third, I love to write and I love challenges, and I knew that it would be a challenge to make an oral tradition work as a written story.

The Story Behind the Story

Chasing Wild Geese in Calabria—The Happiness of Pursuit In the Italian Region of Calabria there is a mountainous, densely wooded national park called the Sila. Its diverse wildlife includes wolves, badgers, wild boar, eagles and vultures. There are no wild geese there, but on a trip I took to Calabria in 2014, I ended up chasing two wild geese at the same time. I had never had so much fun being frustrated. Here is my story. When I was a child, my father used to tell a spellbinding folktale called “The Seven Golden Apples.” He had heard it from his maternal grandfather, Gaetano Caruso, who had come to the United States from Calabria just before the turn of the 20th Century. I also became adept at telling the story, and always received an enthusiastic reaction with the exhortation, “You should write it down.” When my father passed away in 2006, I decided to put the story in writing to preserve it for future generations. Before actually writing the story, I spent years searching for its origins, and it appeared that my great grandfather might well have been the originator of the tale. When I had finished composing the story and having it illustrated, I thought it would be great to travel to Calabria and get some photographs of the village where my great grandfather was born, but I did not know the name of the town.

My father had once sent me a photocopy of the official immigration document of Gaetano Caruso. It was full of spelling mistakes, and his place of birth was given as “Amata.” There is no town in Calabria named Amata, but there is one named Amato. I would simply have to go there and investigate. It seemed like an exciting idea. “While you’re there,” Aunt Gen, my father’s sister, said to me, “try to look up my long-lost cousin Antonio.” So, in the spring of 2014, I traveled to Calabria and drove the short distance from my hotel in Catanzaro Lido to Amato. I parked my car on the edge of the piazza, and walked up to four elderly gentlemen sitting on benches near the fountain. Dusting off my Italian, I introduced myself and asked if they knew of the Caruso family and the story of “The Seven Golden Apples.” They had never heard of the story, but did know someone named Caruso. “I’ll take you to her.” ~~~~

The next morning, I returned to Amato to visit the public records office. We went through pages of birth records from the 1870s, but didn’t see the name Caruso. The clerk told me sometimes older public records were kept by clerics. I was advised to come back to Amato on Sunday to meet with the priest after mass. After leaving the office, I walked around the village, imagining my great grandfather and his siblings walking the same streets and wondered how close I was to the house in which they had grown up. On Sunday, I walked into the little church in Amato and felt very comfortable because I recognized quite a number of faces from the two days I had been in town. After mass, I introduced myself to the priest and he took me to his office to look through old baptismal registers. Sadly, the name Caruso did not appear. I was now certain Amato was not the birthplace of my great grandfather and that my trip had become a veritable wild goose chase.

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Walking back to my car, I was met by some of the townspeople and we started to talk. Many of the residences in Amato looked uninhabited, and I was told that people from the village had abandoned their homes to take jobs in the north. They had not sold their homes, but returned every August, when nearly all Italians take their vacations. These reflections worsened the somber mood that I was already in because I was clearly not going to get a photograph of the house where my great grandfather was born. “Cheer up!” I said to myself. “You are now going to look for a long lost cousin of your dad and your aunt. That will save this trip from being a total wild goose chase.” Amazingly, I found Antonio’s number in the Catanzaro telephone directory. I called him, told him who I was and whom I was looking for, and he said that he was the person in question and that I should come and see him. When I left Antonio’s house I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Congratulations,” I said to myself. “You have just gone on two wild goose chases at once.” ~~~~

Then, a young lady who worked in an adjoining office walked in slowly, bent down towards me and said, almost in a whisper, “Are you aware that there is another town in Calabria called Amato?” The young historian leapt up. “Of course! Amato di Taurianova! Maybe you are in the wrong Amato!” I felt like a moron. I had spent several days in Amato di Catanzaro with no success and had only one full day left in Calabria before having to leave. I thanked everyone and promised that I would immediately investigate the other Amato. When I got to my hotel room I turned on my computer, obtained the telephone number of the public records office in Taurianova, and called immediately. The young bureaucrat that I spoke with clearly resented being bothered, but told me he knew there had been Carusos in Taurianova at one time and asked me to send him an email with as many details about my ancestors as I could. I did that immediately. I then contacted the Catholic Church in Amato di Taurianova to ask about baptismal records. I was fortunate to reach someone there, and – as instructed – sent an email with as much information about the Caruso family as possible. Curious about this other town of Amato – less than a hundred kilometers from Amato di Catanzaro – I decided to spend my last day in Calabria there. On a sunny Tuesday, I drove west from Catanzaro Lido to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The scenery was breathtaking, with mountains to my left and sandy beaches and a sparkling sea at the bottom of steep cliffs to my right. However, when I arrived in Amato di Taurianova, I was immediately disappointed. The village was unsightly, but I had to take some pictures. I wanted to show my aunt that her grandfather and his siblings had been right to leave, and I thought that maybe I would just happen to photograph the house that had belonged to my ancestors. I was so disappointed that I didn’t even bother to look for a World War I memorial or a cemetery. I just wanted to return to Catanzaro Lido, pack my suitcase and have dinner. I thought it might take some time before I would hear from the parish or the public records office in Taurianova, if I heard from them at all. When I returned to my hotel and checked my email, I was flabbergasted to find messages from both; and although both found records of people named Caruso, they were not a match with my ancestors. Those two emails put the finishing touches on my wild goose chase.

It was too early for dinner so I decided to pack my suitcase. While I was folding a shirt, I remembered what Aunt Gen had said about my great grandfather’s brother, Roberto, who had fallen in World War I. I decided to take a long shot, and did an Internet search for “caduti di guerra” (“those fallen in war”). I was astonished to find a data base that contained the names of all the Italian soldiers who had died during the Great War. I did a search for Caruso, and a whole page of names appeared, with one Roberto. The entry for him stated that his father’s name was Pietro. My father had once casually mentioned to me that his grandfather’s father’s name was Pietro. I read further. ~~~~ That evening at dinner, I reflected on my trip. I had not achieved either of my two goals. I had not obtained a picture of the house where my great grandfather was born and I had not located distant cousin Antonio. Nonetheless, I had had a wonderful time, meeting so many good people, eating so much good food, and seeing so many interesting places. Because of all I had learned, I knew it was not a waste of time, even if it was a double wild goose chase; but the wild goose chase was not over. I knew I would return.

Read the full story about Robert’s adventures as he searches for the town of his ancestors in Calabria. Contact the author at cirillorjj@aol.com and he will send the Word document.

During dinner at the hotel that evening, I realized that I would have to return to Amato one last time because I had forgotten two things. I had forgotten to see if there were any Caruso’s buried in the cemetery there, and I had forgotten to see if the World War I monument in the village included the names of the fallen soldiers from Amato. Theoretically, the name of my great grandfather’s brother Roberto would have to be on the monument. The next day, Monday, was the sunniest day I had experienced so far, and the mountains where Amato was located were not fogged in. I parked my car in the usual place and walked down the hill to the World War I monument. The names of the fallen soldiers were listed, but there was no Caruso among them. This was disheartening, because I knew that my great-grandfather’s brother Roberto had died in the war. I then walked over to public records. The young historian smiled at me sympathetically. She seemed to share my disappointment and frustration. To make sure I had exhausted all possibilities, I asked if there were any Carusos buried in the local cemetery. The young man in charge of burial records told me that he had personally gone through the entire cemetery to make sure that every grave was registered. We went through the book together; the name Caruso was totally absent. We sat in silence; our collective disappointment almost tangible.

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