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MISTERO A MATERA
Since childhood, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way.
Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight. Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy's boot--a mountainous land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty. Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene's dogged search, aided by a few lucky--even miraculous--breaks and a group of colorful local characters, led her to the truth. Yes, the family tales she'd heard were true: there had been a murder in Helene's family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim weren't who she thought they were.
In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization--she wasn't who she thought she was, either. Weaving Helene's own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita's life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
Helene Stapinski goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.
Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight. Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy's boot--a mountainous land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty. Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene's dogged search, aided by a few lucky--even miraculous--breaks and a group of colorful local characters, led her to the truth. Yes, the family tales she'd heard were true: there had been a murder in Helene's family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim weren't who she thought they were.
In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization--she wasn't who she thought she was, either. Weaving Helene's own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita's life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
Helene Stapinski goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.
Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
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First published May 23, 2017
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June 22, 2017
Smudges on your rearview mirror.
You can't escape your past or the long line of individuals that came before you. Some of us have more smudges than others in the form of family crooks, thieves, vagabonds and the like. But Helene Stapinski beholds a somewhat shaky truth that there's an actual murderer in hers.
"You could run, but the past would catch you soon enough and kick you in the ass when you weren't looking. That wasn't a saying in America, but maybe it should be."
Stapinski, like so many of us, grew up hearing family tales and mere snippets of stories depicting her great-great grandmother, Vita, as a loose woman who fled Southern Italy for America in 1892. With children in tow and very little money she set up her new home in Jersey City. Like an ink-stained tattoo, no matter how she scrubbed, the link to a murder followed her. And Vita's secret life became a pox on those following in her lineage.
With the deep fear that such personality traits can be inherited, Stapinski brings her mother and her young children to Vita's small Italian town to find out more about this elusive relative. She's noticed family members who have wayward tendencies and she fears for her children after doing research on the subject. The Gallitelli name seems to have quite the barbs. Besides that, this is a frantic itch that needs scratching.
Murder in Matera is set up in two main parts: the initial search and then the follow-up search that occured ten years later. Stapinski interviews relatives and neighbors in Bernalda and surrounding places where Vita had lived. Her investigation falls short when she hits brick walls. No one seems to know "her story" and access to records are limited in her already limited Italian.
Fast forward ten years and Stapinski is able to travel without her children. Her solo trip will take us through life in these poor villages and showcase the deep desire to survive that was at the core of Vita's existence. It is this personal story of Vita that now carries the storyline through cobblestone streets and through interaction with both the kind and the unscrupulous. Vita's truth becomes one with Stapinski's truth through culture, music, poetry, and diligence combined.
Murder in Matera may not settle well with all readers. The search, at times, is an arduous one with not all research avenues panning out. But, as they say, the journey tends to reveal more than the destination itself. And Stapinski reveals Vita's story with frustration, humor, and simple tenderness combined with the weight of humanity. Perhaps it may give pause for all of us to have a closer look at those smudges on our own rearview mirrors.
I received a copy of Murder in Matera through Giveaways on Goodreads. My thanks to Dey Street Books and to Helene Stapinski for the opportunity.
You can't escape your past or the long line of individuals that came before you. Some of us have more smudges than others in the form of family crooks, thieves, vagabonds and the like. But Helene Stapinski beholds a somewhat shaky truth that there's an actual murderer in hers.
"You could run, but the past would catch you soon enough and kick you in the ass when you weren't looking. That wasn't a saying in America, but maybe it should be."
Stapinski, like so many of us, grew up hearing family tales and mere snippets of stories depicting her great-great grandmother, Vita, as a loose woman who fled Southern Italy for America in 1892. With children in tow and very little money she set up her new home in Jersey City. Like an ink-stained tattoo, no matter how she scrubbed, the link to a murder followed her. And Vita's secret life became a pox on those following in her lineage.
With the deep fear that such personality traits can be inherited, Stapinski brings her mother and her young children to Vita's small Italian town to find out more about this elusive relative. She's noticed family members who have wayward tendencies and she fears for her children after doing research on the subject. The Gallitelli name seems to have quite the barbs. Besides that, this is a frantic itch that needs scratching.
Murder in Matera is set up in two main parts: the initial search and then the follow-up search that occured ten years later. Stapinski interviews relatives and neighbors in Bernalda and surrounding places where Vita had lived. Her investigation falls short when she hits brick walls. No one seems to know "her story" and access to records are limited in her already limited Italian.
Fast forward ten years and Stapinski is able to travel without her children. Her solo trip will take us through life in these poor villages and showcase the deep desire to survive that was at the core of Vita's existence. It is this personal story of Vita that now carries the storyline through cobblestone streets and through interaction with both the kind and the unscrupulous. Vita's truth becomes one with Stapinski's truth through culture, music, poetry, and diligence combined.
Murder in Matera may not settle well with all readers. The search, at times, is an arduous one with not all research avenues panning out. But, as they say, the journey tends to reveal more than the destination itself. And Stapinski reveals Vita's story with frustration, humor, and simple tenderness combined with the weight of humanity. Perhaps it may give pause for all of us to have a closer look at those smudges on our own rearview mirrors.
I received a copy of Murder in Matera through Giveaways on Goodreads. My thanks to Dey Street Books and to Helene Stapinski for the opportunity.
October 15, 2017
This is a tough one to rate. What I liked about it, I really liked, but what I didn't like, I hated. I enjoyed the story of Stapinski tracing her family back to 19th century Italy and explaining the detective work, the research, the collaboration with various experts, that went into discovering the mystery of the murder in Matera. I liked her descriptions of Italy and the people she got to know, her adventures with and without her small children, the meals she ate, the sights she saw, the history of the area. And since I listened to the audio version of the book, I liked Stapinski's own narration, her no-nonsense New York accent reminding us of where her ancestors landed and stayed when they left Italy in 1892. What I did not like was Stapinski taking a journalistic memoir and infusing it with fiction. The ancestors she wrote about were illiterate and therefore left no diaries or letters. They were poor so newspapers did not follow their exploits and barely noticed their crimes. But Stapinski could not resist telling parts of the story from the point of view of her ancestor, what she thought, how she felt. These flights of fancy would be wonderful in a historical novel, but not in a work of nonfiction.
July 13, 2017
I wanted to like this book, which is why I gave it 2 stars and not 1, but getting to the end of it felt like walking through mud. I think that, for me, the problem was the author's style along with the way she developed the story as a memoir (and it was her personal experience), but then wove into it what I can only conclude now was conjecture about the details of her family's past. Even though she ultimately does find documentation of births, deaths and other official records, there were no journals or anything that would give her insight into the thoughts and feelings of her ancestors. Yet she wrote as though she knew those things, and I just couldn't get past that because this was not a work a fiction.
September 4, 2017
This book hit at a good time for me - I was tired of reading distressingly sad accounts of people dealing with war and civil conflict, and tired of reading stories about old folks dealing with failing health and death. So, Helen's story of how she tracked down the story of her great grandmother's life and the reason she emigrated to America was just the ticket.
What I liked most was learning about the part of Italy where Helen's great grandmother, Vita, lived which was fascinating. Based on her research, Helen describes life in Basilicata in the late 1800s and explains how the history of that region led to traditions and conflicts. I knew so little about this area of Italy, which Helen describes as the "insole on the boot of Italy," and loved these parts of the book. When Helen returns, first with her mother and children, and later alone, she finds that some things have changed, but other traditions are continuing. Life in Bernalda is better now for it inhabitants, but it is still very different from NYC and its suburbs where both Helen and I live, so reading about her experiences was also fun to listen to (I did audiobook). And Vita's story, as it unspools, was another good reason to read this book.
The problem for me was, sort of, Helen - or at least her motives and reactions. Helen had always heard that Vita fled Italy because she had committed a murder. Helen starts to worry that she has passed along a 'murder' gene to her children and so she decides to find out exactly how culpable her great grandmother was. OK, seriously - even if there is such a thing as a 'murder gene' (and Helen provides some support for this based on a Finnish study) , her kids would have a one-sixteenth chance that this gene would have been passed on from Vita. It wodul seem that the other 15/16ths of one's genes might offset this. Yet a good part of the book is taken up with Helen agonizing about whether she has spawned Lizzie Borden and Jeffrey Dahmer. I would have liked the book better if Helen just followed up on Vita's story because she was curious. Since Helen is a reporter, this seems like the more likely motive - she is curious and has the skills to research this and learn more about her family's roots, so why not? And Vita's life was interesting enough that, as a reader, I did not need the way Helen tries to build up suspense. For example, at one point, Helen has the opportunity to visit caves in the area where monks, under persecution from the Byzantine empire, lived, and where they painted elaborate frescoes of Bible stories. While there, she sees a mural of Adam and Eve, and immediately describes this as a "clue" and says if she had been able to read the messages of the past, she could have decoded Vita's life on the spot. Oh, please! I can see, as an author, she is trying to tie all of these experiences into the story she is telling, but really, this is stretching it, and she loses credility when you find out later the connection between the mural and Vita's story. Trust me, it is tenuous at best.
In summary, Helen's story is an interesting one, and, to this reader, it would have been improved (and probably shorter) if she could have stuck to facts and dispensed with the window-dressing.
What I liked most was learning about the part of Italy where Helen's great grandmother, Vita, lived which was fascinating. Based on her research, Helen describes life in Basilicata in the late 1800s and explains how the history of that region led to traditions and conflicts. I knew so little about this area of Italy, which Helen describes as the "insole on the boot of Italy," and loved these parts of the book. When Helen returns, first with her mother and children, and later alone, she finds that some things have changed, but other traditions are continuing. Life in Bernalda is better now for it inhabitants, but it is still very different from NYC and its suburbs where both Helen and I live, so reading about her experiences was also fun to listen to (I did audiobook). And Vita's story, as it unspools, was another good reason to read this book.
The problem for me was, sort of, Helen - or at least her motives and reactions. Helen had always heard that Vita fled Italy because she had committed a murder. Helen starts to worry that she has passed along a 'murder' gene to her children and so she decides to find out exactly how culpable her great grandmother was. OK, seriously - even if there is such a thing as a 'murder gene' (and Helen provides some support for this based on a Finnish study) , her kids would have a one-sixteenth chance that this gene would have been passed on from Vita. It wodul seem that the other 15/16ths of one's genes might offset this. Yet a good part of the book is taken up with Helen agonizing about whether she has spawned Lizzie Borden and Jeffrey Dahmer. I would have liked the book better if Helen just followed up on Vita's story because she was curious. Since Helen is a reporter, this seems like the more likely motive - she is curious and has the skills to research this and learn more about her family's roots, so why not? And Vita's life was interesting enough that, as a reader, I did not need the way Helen tries to build up suspense. For example, at one point, Helen has the opportunity to visit caves in the area where monks, under persecution from the Byzantine empire, lived, and where they painted elaborate frescoes of Bible stories. While there, she sees a mural of Adam and Eve, and immediately describes this as a "clue" and says if she had been able to read the messages of the past, she could have decoded Vita's life on the spot. Oh, please! I can see, as an author, she is trying to tie all of these experiences into the story she is telling, but really, this is stretching it, and she loses credility when you find out later the connection between the mural and Vita's story. Trust me, it is tenuous at best.
In summary, Helen's story is an interesting one, and, to this reader, it would have been improved (and probably shorter) if she could have stuck to facts and dispensed with the window-dressing.
Read
May 24, 2017Stapinski grew up in a family of thieves in Chicago – but they weren’t the only relatives who may have broken the law. Growing up, she heard that her Italian grandmother had murdered someone before moving to America. Stapinski’s interest in her grandmother’s story only deepened as an adult, and over the years and several trips to Italy, she uncovered long-buried secrets that she then turned into this wonderful historical whodunit/family memoir. Makes you wonder about your own grandmother…
Backlist bump: Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History by Helene Stapinski (One of my favorite memoirs!)
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...
Backlist bump: Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History by Helene Stapinski (One of my favorite memoirs!)
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...
September 2, 2017
Excellent for the historical depiction of 19th century Italy. Also a good explanation for not only why did they immigrate to America, but also why did they emigrate from Italy. The author states that she uses her own feelings as a descendant of the main character to portray feelings and actions of that character (Historical fiction?). I'm not a big fan, it makes the story more "read-able" but I wouldn't want someone a hundred years from now to say how I acted or felt because they transposed how they would have acted and felt, don't like that idea at all.
August 17, 2024
i lteft somewhere along the way. the start was quite intriguing a new yorker woman in obsession to find her roots which are no other other than a woman killer back there in puglia, Italy. good start by all means. i did not mind that some mixed facts were wrong, when she talked too much about her children, because she was obssesed. But when she started inventing the life of this grand grand mother from childhood i lost total interest hecause the drama, the tension was gone.it became shallow prose. a good editor could save it.
August 20, 2021
Review originally published August 2017
Have you ever wondered where you came from? Are there murderers, thieves or just normal boring folks in your bloodline? Should you be concerned for your children with the whole nature vs nurture question, if some of your ancestors did bad things? This is the question Helene Stapinski found herself asking often and wondering if the stories she heard about her great-great-grandmother being a murderer were true.
Helene was told that Vita, her great-great-grandmother, fled Italy in 1982 with her three children after committing murder. This story was told to her often by her mother who heard the story by her father, Grandpa Beansie. Grandpa Beansie himself had spent time in prison for stealing and other illegal activities. Helene was a journalist and was consumed with discovering the truth about her great-great-grandmother and her story partly due to the fact that Helene had two small children and one of them prone to temper tantrums and outbursts. Was this normal child behavior or was it something more, passed down from generation to generation. She had little to go on, just a death certificate for Vita, birth certificates of Vita's sons and a few street names. With this information she made the decision to take her two small children and her mother on a trip to Italy for a "vacation" to try and find some answers. Thus beginning her ten year journey to discover the truth about her ancestors and writing the book, Murder in Matera: a True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy.
This true story takes you on the journey with Helene. The story goes from present day following Helene's journey of discovery to the past and Vita's journey from childhood to her death at the age of sixty-four. Unfortunately, Vita couldn't read or write so there were no journals for Helene to use so the voice of Vita is as Helene imagined her thoughts and reactions to be. She didn't have much luck on her first trip to Italy but going back ten years later she had much better results. She discovered Vita had left Italy to go to America in 1892, the same year a quarter million Italians emigrated to escape horrible hardships. It wasn't normal for women to travel without a man as Vita did and with her three children. Not three boys as the stories said but two boys and her seven year old daughter who unfortunately was lost on the long journey to America. Vitas life wasn't an easy one and the stories that Helene had been told starting at the age of four was filled with untruths and misinformation, yes there was a murder and Vita had an affair but some things were completely out of her control.
Discovering your ancestors can be a fun and surprising journey. If local history is what you’re after check out local author on West Salem history, Errol Kindschy’s book, Taking Care of Business-the West Salem Way.
There are some resources available off our website at lacrossecountylibrary.org. We have a link to Heritage Quest online, a collection of genealogical and historical sources. From our website click on Badgerlink on the bottom of the page and go to all resources, from there to heritage quest. Also check out our link for ECHO(exploring cultural history online) from the Winding Rivers Library System which has an online collection of pictures and a searchable database by town/village etc.
Find this book and other titles within our catalog.
Have you ever wondered where you came from? Are there murderers, thieves or just normal boring folks in your bloodline? Should you be concerned for your children with the whole nature vs nurture question, if some of your ancestors did bad things? This is the question Helene Stapinski found herself asking often and wondering if the stories she heard about her great-great-grandmother being a murderer were true.
Helene was told that Vita, her great-great-grandmother, fled Italy in 1982 with her three children after committing murder. This story was told to her often by her mother who heard the story by her father, Grandpa Beansie. Grandpa Beansie himself had spent time in prison for stealing and other illegal activities. Helene was a journalist and was consumed with discovering the truth about her great-great-grandmother and her story partly due to the fact that Helene had two small children and one of them prone to temper tantrums and outbursts. Was this normal child behavior or was it something more, passed down from generation to generation. She had little to go on, just a death certificate for Vita, birth certificates of Vita's sons and a few street names. With this information she made the decision to take her two small children and her mother on a trip to Italy for a "vacation" to try and find some answers. Thus beginning her ten year journey to discover the truth about her ancestors and writing the book, Murder in Matera: a True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy.
This true story takes you on the journey with Helene. The story goes from present day following Helene's journey of discovery to the past and Vita's journey from childhood to her death at the age of sixty-four. Unfortunately, Vita couldn't read or write so there were no journals for Helene to use so the voice of Vita is as Helene imagined her thoughts and reactions to be. She didn't have much luck on her first trip to Italy but going back ten years later she had much better results. She discovered Vita had left Italy to go to America in 1892, the same year a quarter million Italians emigrated to escape horrible hardships. It wasn't normal for women to travel without a man as Vita did and with her three children. Not three boys as the stories said but two boys and her seven year old daughter who unfortunately was lost on the long journey to America. Vitas life wasn't an easy one and the stories that Helene had been told starting at the age of four was filled with untruths and misinformation, yes there was a murder and Vita had an affair but some things were completely out of her control.
Discovering your ancestors can be a fun and surprising journey. If local history is what you’re after check out local author on West Salem history, Errol Kindschy’s book, Taking Care of Business-the West Salem Way.
There are some resources available off our website at lacrossecountylibrary.org. We have a link to Heritage Quest online, a collection of genealogical and historical sources. From our website click on Badgerlink on the bottom of the page and go to all resources, from there to heritage quest. Also check out our link for ECHO(exploring cultural history online) from the Winding Rivers Library System which has an online collection of pictures and a searchable database by town/village etc.
Find this book and other titles within our catalog.
November 5, 2018
Mom read it, I skimmed it, Dad is reading it. Mom and I both think Helene's obsession with passing on a criminal gene is a bit too much and mentioned too frequently. I think Helene should have written a novel. As it stands as a memoir, I felt compelled to skip her fanciful imaginings on her ancestor's life. You can write about the conditions she lived in without speculating on her thoughts, words and feelings. I was also annoyed with Helene for not understanding the culture and barging in and asking questions about a century old murder. Even in small town America people would react the same way. Scandal may be enjoyable to a New York City writer but not in small towns. Mom and Dad enjoyed the descriptions of the places she went as they prepared for their own journey to Matera. I liked the mystery and finally learning what actually happened. This is a tragic story that illuminates many of the reasons our southern Italian ancestors came to the United States in the first place. I do hope my dad at least takes that away from Helene's great-grandmother's story, because look at Matera now!
https://pix.sfly.com/uGQmp_
(My parents sent me these images while I was freezing and watching drizzling rain come out of a gray sky in a big American city).
https://pix.sfly.com/uGQmp_
(My parents sent me these images while I was freezing and watching drizzling rain come out of a gray sky in a big American city).
July 23, 2017
Helene Stapinski grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, a descendant of Italian immigrants who had fled Italy in the late 1800s. She was told that her great-great-grandmother had been involved in a murder in Matera, and because some of her other relatives had been involved in criminal activity, Stapinksi had always worried that her children or other descendants would end up on the wrong side of the law as well, passed down through the genes.
Stapinski decided to finally find out the truth. She traveled to Italy, to Bernalda in particular where her ancestors had lived, trying to figure out exactly what had occurred. Even though she and her mother were there for a month with her small children, Stapinski wasn't able to find out much, except that some of her distant relatives did not want to discuss the matter. Ten years later, she returned alone -- but in that ten years, she did a lot of background research and hired a couple of research assistants in Italy to help her. Finally, she was able to piece together exactly what had happened, and to come out from under the shadow of murder in her DNA.
There is quite a lot of conjecture in this book, as Vita Gallitelli, her great-great-grandmother, left no journals or letters or other documents, as she was illiterate. There is, however, a huge file on the actual murder that Stapinski finally found, so that portion is historically accurate. However, Stapinski's writing is so conversational that the reader is totally drawn in to the story, and the pages just fly by. Considering that it is her family story, I see nothing wrong with Stapinski conjecturing about Vita's decisions and actions and motivations.
Aside from the interesting story told by Stapinski, we also get a glimpse of how difficult life was like for people in Italy in the late 1800s, and why they would be so eager to emigrate to the United States. Stapinski's ancestors ate meat only three times a year, which led to malnutrition and a stunting of growth. They rarely grew over five feet tall. Starvation was rampant, and half of the children died before their fifth birthday. Coming to America must have seemed to be like coming to heaven on Earth, with clean water and plentiful food and free schools for the children. No wonder so many immigrants saw America as their salvation.
A fascinating look into one family's story, and one I would highly recommend.
Stapinski decided to finally find out the truth. She traveled to Italy, to Bernalda in particular where her ancestors had lived, trying to figure out exactly what had occurred. Even though she and her mother were there for a month with her small children, Stapinski wasn't able to find out much, except that some of her distant relatives did not want to discuss the matter. Ten years later, she returned alone -- but in that ten years, she did a lot of background research and hired a couple of research assistants in Italy to help her. Finally, she was able to piece together exactly what had happened, and to come out from under the shadow of murder in her DNA.
There is quite a lot of conjecture in this book, as Vita Gallitelli, her great-great-grandmother, left no journals or letters or other documents, as she was illiterate. There is, however, a huge file on the actual murder that Stapinski finally found, so that portion is historically accurate. However, Stapinski's writing is so conversational that the reader is totally drawn in to the story, and the pages just fly by. Considering that it is her family story, I see nothing wrong with Stapinski conjecturing about Vita's decisions and actions and motivations.
Aside from the interesting story told by Stapinski, we also get a glimpse of how difficult life was like for people in Italy in the late 1800s, and why they would be so eager to emigrate to the United States. Stapinski's ancestors ate meat only three times a year, which led to malnutrition and a stunting of growth. They rarely grew over five feet tall. Starvation was rampant, and half of the children died before their fifth birthday. Coming to America must have seemed to be like coming to heaven on Earth, with clean water and plentiful food and free schools for the children. No wonder so many immigrants saw America as their salvation.
A fascinating look into one family's story, and one I would highly recommend.
April 17, 2017
Disclaimer: I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.
From the opening paragraph, I was hooked. Stapinski combines her training as a journalist with years of hearing an incomplete family story about a murder to write her exploration of family roots. It’s difficult to pigeonhole this book into any specific genre. It is heavily memoir, with elements of travelogue, investigative reporting, criminal thriller, and creative imagining thrown in. She comes from a long line of storytellers, and, concerned over the possibility of inherited criminal genes, was determined to get to the bottom of this particular story. Stapinski’s writing is conversational, full of rich details and explanations of Italian culture. She uses an interesting technique of interspersing chapters about life in southern Italy during the 1800s, which is the time period of the alleged murder. These sections read like a novel, using Stapinski’s relatives as the main characters. There were no journals or letters, so Stapinski weaves meticulous research with the handed-down stories, and forms her own descriptions of life in the Basilicata region of Italy. It takes several trips to Italy, and hiring researchers and translators, but Stapinski does eventually untangle the mystery.
From the opening paragraph, I was hooked. Stapinski combines her training as a journalist with years of hearing an incomplete family story about a murder to write her exploration of family roots. It’s difficult to pigeonhole this book into any specific genre. It is heavily memoir, with elements of travelogue, investigative reporting, criminal thriller, and creative imagining thrown in. She comes from a long line of storytellers, and, concerned over the possibility of inherited criminal genes, was determined to get to the bottom of this particular story. Stapinski’s writing is conversational, full of rich details and explanations of Italian culture. She uses an interesting technique of interspersing chapters about life in southern Italy during the 1800s, which is the time period of the alleged murder. These sections read like a novel, using Stapinski’s relatives as the main characters. There were no journals or letters, so Stapinski weaves meticulous research with the handed-down stories, and forms her own descriptions of life in the Basilicata region of Italy. It takes several trips to Italy, and hiring researchers and translators, but Stapinski does eventually untangle the mystery.
October 6, 2017
Reading this story was very relevant to me, and is in part why I found this book so interesting and captivating. Hearing about Helene's true story to find information about her southern Italian ancestors gave me a fantastic and detailed insight as to what life was like for the rural poor living in the Basilicata region of Italy in the 19th century. Vita, much like my great-great-grandmother and great-grandmother Concetta, lived in absolute poverty until they were able to make it to America and start a new life. I've had many struggles and ancestry dead-ends in researching my own Italian roots, and this novel inspired me to try again (and maybe travel to Italy again- now that I have an excuse)! The detailed characterization of Helene's own ancestors, done creatively and through her own imagination mixed with facts, was very realistic and made these people you hear about in history books seem more raw, more human. I loved learning about all the aspects of southern Italian life and culture, and for once learning just how bad the people had it. The one question that remains for me though, is what happened to Nunzia??!! I really want to know! Did she die? Was she kidnapped by some awful gang? Maybe we'll never know.
abandoned
September 6, 2017It kept meandering between fact and fiction until it lost me.
July 6, 2023
Bello e toccante. Un misto fra autobiografia e romanzo storico.
November 1, 2021
Murder In Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy by Helene Stapinski wasn't bad, but I suppose I was just expecting something much different than what I ended up getting from this crime memoir. I did like learning how the author traced her family back and began researching, but I wish it was less fictionalized (since there were no direct records like journals or anything from the family members in question). Now that I've completed the book, I almost wish that this memoir was developed as a novel based on her family's past exploits rather than as it was.
May 3, 2018
More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.
True crime stories are awesome--terrible, but awesome. I just started listening to this amazing podcast, My Favorite Murder, which is both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. I can't stop listening, or looking over my shoulder as I do so to make sure no one is lurking there with a large knife. And so what could be better than a book combining true crime, history, and Italian food?
Murder in Matera is the story of Helene Stapinski's search for her family's fabled murder. She grew up with her mother telling her stories of how her great-great-great (I think) grandmother, Vita, murdered someone in Matera, Italy, and fled to the United States with her children in tow, but lost one of them along the way. Stapinski's family is apparently riddled with criminals, the most notable being her grandfather, Beansie, and she's haunted by a concern that criminality is a genetic trait and that she has passed it down to her children, and so she wants to "solve" the murder in order to figure out what happened...because apparently that will fix it?
There are some awesome things in this book and some things that bothered me. First off, anything involving tracking down a murder--particularly one that took place over a century ago--is interesting. Stapinski had to dig down into the archives of various towns in the region in order to find out what happened--with her great-great-great grandmother, grandfather, the padrone of the region, the children, etc. She speaks some Italian but also hires a few locals to help her as researchers, and struggles with navigating the small-town atmospheres of the places she goes. The scenery is clearly gorgeous and Stapinski captures it well, as she does with the food. This is a book that will make you want to eat Italian food--all the Italian food, from fresh fruit to pasta puttanesca to pizza to--well, absolutely everything. Even foods you don't like will sound good here.
But what I didn't like was when she takes broad liberties with Vita's story. The actual details of the murder are eventually discovered, because they're contained in a court document. But for Vita herself, Stapinski blatantly makes up her thoughts, feelings,a and actions, saying in the afterword that the relied on her "Gallitelli blood and bones" to know what her ancestor would have thought...which is ridiculous. You can't just make up history. The problem is that she wants Vita to be a saint, and so she decides that's how things must have been, without having any evidence of really knowing it. Ascribing emotions and actions to people from the past without having any idea of what they actually did is a classic pitfall in talking about history, and Stapinski blunders into it full-throttle here. These portions do not belong in a work of nonfiction. Additionally, her obsessing about her children's genes got old quickly. Apparently there is one study from Iceland about prisoners (or was it Finland?) that said many who committed violent crimes had a gene tied to aggression, but guess what? You are not your genes! Just because you have a gene tied to aggression doesn't mean you have to kill people! In this way, Stapinski seems to throw her hands up in looking at the past, putting it all down to fate and not looking at responsibility for one's own actions, which really bothered me.
Overall, an okay book that could have been a good book, but strayed past its boundaries and into fiction instead of history too much. The nonfiction portions are excellent, but the "creating stories out of whole cloth" portion left a bad taste in my mouth.
2 stars out of 5.
True crime stories are awesome--terrible, but awesome. I just started listening to this amazing podcast, My Favorite Murder, which is both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. I can't stop listening, or looking over my shoulder as I do so to make sure no one is lurking there with a large knife. And so what could be better than a book combining true crime, history, and Italian food?
Murder in Matera is the story of Helene Stapinski's search for her family's fabled murder. She grew up with her mother telling her stories of how her great-great-great (I think) grandmother, Vita, murdered someone in Matera, Italy, and fled to the United States with her children in tow, but lost one of them along the way. Stapinski's family is apparently riddled with criminals, the most notable being her grandfather, Beansie, and she's haunted by a concern that criminality is a genetic trait and that she has passed it down to her children, and so she wants to "solve" the murder in order to figure out what happened...because apparently that will fix it?
There are some awesome things in this book and some things that bothered me. First off, anything involving tracking down a murder--particularly one that took place over a century ago--is interesting. Stapinski had to dig down into the archives of various towns in the region in order to find out what happened--with her great-great-great grandmother, grandfather, the padrone of the region, the children, etc. She speaks some Italian but also hires a few locals to help her as researchers, and struggles with navigating the small-town atmospheres of the places she goes. The scenery is clearly gorgeous and Stapinski captures it well, as she does with the food. This is a book that will make you want to eat Italian food--all the Italian food, from fresh fruit to pasta puttanesca to pizza to--well, absolutely everything. Even foods you don't like will sound good here.
But what I didn't like was when she takes broad liberties with Vita's story. The actual details of the murder are eventually discovered, because they're contained in a court document. But for Vita herself, Stapinski blatantly makes up her thoughts, feelings,a and actions, saying in the afterword that the relied on her "Gallitelli blood and bones" to know what her ancestor would have thought...which is ridiculous. You can't just make up history. The problem is that she wants Vita to be a saint, and so she decides that's how things must have been, without having any evidence of really knowing it. Ascribing emotions and actions to people from the past without having any idea of what they actually did is a classic pitfall in talking about history, and Stapinski blunders into it full-throttle here. These portions do not belong in a work of nonfiction. Additionally, her obsessing about her children's genes got old quickly. Apparently there is one study from Iceland about prisoners (or was it Finland?) that said many who committed violent crimes had a gene tied to aggression, but guess what? You are not your genes! Just because you have a gene tied to aggression doesn't mean you have to kill people! In this way, Stapinski seems to throw her hands up in looking at the past, putting it all down to fate and not looking at responsibility for one's own actions, which really bothered me.
Overall, an okay book that could have been a good book, but strayed past its boundaries and into fiction instead of history too much. The nonfiction portions are excellent, but the "creating stories out of whole cloth" portion left a bad taste in my mouth.
2 stars out of 5.
September 6, 2025
While I appreciate the journalistic nature of this book and all the investigation that the author did I felt it lacked something. I didn't really like how the author skipped from her research to the story of Vita, her great - great grandmother and the murder that caused her to come to the US. It felt uneven between the two types of writing. Also since there was no diary or personal record, I felt that the personal parts of the story (the love story, the feelings, her interior motivations) were not as reliable. If she wanted to write a fiction story based on true events that would be fine, but this is a nonfiction book and there is a large amount that is not based on fact but only on what the author thought that Vita might have felt. The amount of research done is amazing but don't give us fiction.
August 21, 2017
Reading this book, I felt like I was in Italy with the author as she searched for clues to her family's history. I have questions about my own family's history, so her story was especially intriguing.
I love the descriptions of her trips to Italy; the first with her mother and two young children and the second, alone, ten years later. The beautiful landscapes and architectures are described beautifully. I felt like I was on the journey with her.
Listening to family folklore, she fears there may be a criminal gene in her family. She believes that the answer lies with her great-great-grandmother, Vita, a woman who left Italy with her three children, so long ago. Her quest for details of a rumored, family murder involving Vita, is exciting. It is filled with disappointment, frustration, understanding, and acceptance. The truth isn't always what we expect it to be, yet it's wonderful to finally find it after a long, exhausting search. This is quite a fascinating journey. I'm delighted to have read the book!
I love the descriptions of her trips to Italy; the first with her mother and two young children and the second, alone, ten years later. The beautiful landscapes and architectures are described beautifully. I felt like I was on the journey with her.
Listening to family folklore, she fears there may be a criminal gene in her family. She believes that the answer lies with her great-great-grandmother, Vita, a woman who left Italy with her three children, so long ago. Her quest for details of a rumored, family murder involving Vita, is exciting. It is filled with disappointment, frustration, understanding, and acceptance. The truth isn't always what we expect it to be, yet it's wonderful to finally find it after a long, exhausting search. This is quite a fascinating journey. I'm delighted to have read the book!
June 27, 2017
There is something about ancestor-search memoirs that gets to me every time, and this one is no different. Helene Stapinski goes in search of the truth to the family story about her great-great-great grandmother, Vita, a supposed murderess (if only I had the knowledge or resources to hunt down the truth of my family's stories! But I digress). The writing style is a little chatty at times, but the story of the murder and Vita and her family, her emigration to America, and the conditions she left behind in Southern Italy are compelling and suspenseful.
One thing that will stick with me is the total poverty of Italy in the 19th century, and the direct connection to the thousands and thousands of Italians who came to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The tide was only stemmed when lawmakers were convinced of the racial inferiority of the Italian "race" (as well as Eastern European Jews), and placed restrictions on the numbers of those allowed to enter the U.S. But Vita and her two sons made it, and made lives for themselves here. It brings to mind the chorus of the song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" from The Hamilton Mixtape: a repetition of the line "Look how far I've come." This must be why ancestor-search stories get me every time.
One thing that will stick with me is the total poverty of Italy in the 19th century, and the direct connection to the thousands and thousands of Italians who came to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The tide was only stemmed when lawmakers were convinced of the racial inferiority of the Italian "race" (as well as Eastern European Jews), and placed restrictions on the numbers of those allowed to enter the U.S. But Vita and her two sons made it, and made lives for themselves here. It brings to mind the chorus of the song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" from The Hamilton Mixtape: a repetition of the line "Look how far I've come." This must be why ancestor-search stories get me every time.
May 31, 2017
A true crime/memoir that takes you to Italy in the 1800s and modern day as Stapinski tries to unravel a family mystery. Stapinski had grown up hearing a story about her great-great-grandmother Vita that ended with her committing murder and immigrating to the U.S. Stapinski had always worried that somehow this one person in her family had passed down something that created criminals throughout the generations, but she really didn’t know enough about Vita because the story had been told word-of-mouth. So Stapinski sets off to uncover the true story of who her great-great-grandmother really was. Told in parts as memoir as Stapinski travels to Italy to uncover the truth, and in parts as an imagining of Vita’s life (by Stapinski, based on research and how she would have felt), this is a really interesting read from the look at Southern Italy in the 1800s to the truth uncovered about Vita’s life.
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsletter: Tess Gerritsen Q&A, International Crime Thrillers, & More
--from Book Riot's Unusual Suspects newsletter: Tess Gerritsen Q&A, International Crime Thrillers, & More
July 27, 2017
I bought this based on an NPR review and though the narrative started out promising, in the end I was vastly disappointed. The sections "imagining" what her ancestor thought, said and did were very distracting. Only in an afterward did the author admit these were made up. That was obvious as they were not as compelling as the investigative journalistic chapters. In fact, they were awful and a bad device and a bad choice. The book was sold as non-fiction and at least 40% is made up based on historical research. I wish the author had picked a lane - either an investigative journalistic memoir OR historical fiction. She also needed a better editor. Twice she reports that women in those years, in southern Italy, maintained their maiden names. And a section about pears read like the author just googled "literary pears" and assembled a bunch of paragraphs on pears in history, myths and literature without any connective train of thought. I really really wanted to like this as my ancestors came from the same part of Italy about the same time. I did appreciate those parts that illuminated what my great grandparents might have experienced. But no way is this book worth $27.
April 1, 2019
What I enjoyed about this book was the narrative, as the author researched her family’s past, following proverbial bread crumbs. She made Italy come alive during her research trips, the dead ends and the unexpected paths to truth.
What I didn’t like was how she infused fiction into the book, with recreating what she thought it might have been for Vita and others back in the 1800’s-1900’s. She gave a voice to Vita and others, as well as speculated on their feelings, thoughts, reactions, etc. Those parts seemed contrived and verbose.
Overall, it was a decent read.
What I didn’t like was how she infused fiction into the book, with recreating what she thought it might have been for Vita and others back in the 1800’s-1900’s. She gave a voice to Vita and others, as well as speculated on their feelings, thoughts, reactions, etc. Those parts seemed contrived and verbose.
Overall, it was a decent read.
June 16, 2017
There is so much to love about this book. It is true page-turner, a twisty-turny tale of a woman's search for the truth about her great-great grandmother--a murderer, according to family legend. It’s also a lovingly told family saga, with the no-bullshit humor I've come to expect from all of Helene's books.
April 27, 2017
I adore Italy (I come from an Italian family) and very much enjoyed reading this book which combines history/mystery with the author's own personal experiences. A well written and very interesting read. If you like Italian history, this book is for you. I won a copy of this book from the publisher.
June 1, 2017
This was not the type of story that I expected to become so attached. But from the first page I could not put it down. It was as if I was traveling with Helene on a quest to help solve an intricate puzzle. If I did not know this was a true story it could very well be a top rate suspense.
August 27, 2017
Maybe 3.5, maybe. Interesting story, but a bit melodramatic, and soooo much conjecture, imagination about the past.
August 29, 2019
This is one of those stories where the family drama is interesting to the author but not at all to the reader.
August 22, 2019
The subtitle to this family history murder mystery promises a LOT–and it delivers! As a child, Helene Stapinski heard about her great-great-grandmother who fled Italy–with young children in tow–after being involved in a murder. Parts of the story were vague: who was killed? Why? When? How? Nobody knew. But other details were startlingly precise and consistent. She had to leave her husband behind. A man named Grieco helped her escape. A child was lost on the way to America. Years later, Helene embarked on a 10-year quest to learn the truth behind this family legend. Her journey took her to Matera, Italy, and eventually to a 600-page criminal court file from 1872.
There was a murder. But it wasn’t exactly as the family had said. Helene gradually leaned that her family was not who she thought they were. And that meant Helene herself was not who she thought she was. The rest, you can read for yourself. The noted journalist continues to unravel a past that she explored in her fantastic first family history memoir, Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History. This new book is part history, part re-imagined family story. It’s a story of poverty and power, love, tragic decisions, and a courageous and desperate woman’s leap to a new life across the ocean. And it's also an honest memoir about the challenges of a mid-life mother trying to untangle her past while at the same time trying to raise children (and figure out what to tell them about their past). I interviewed the author about this book for the Genealogy Gems Podcast and it was a fun conversation.
There was a murder. But it wasn’t exactly as the family had said. Helene gradually leaned that her family was not who she thought they were. And that meant Helene herself was not who she thought she was. The rest, you can read for yourself. The noted journalist continues to unravel a past that she explored in her fantastic first family history memoir, Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History. This new book is part history, part re-imagined family story. It’s a story of poverty and power, love, tragic decisions, and a courageous and desperate woman’s leap to a new life across the ocean. And it's also an honest memoir about the challenges of a mid-life mother trying to untangle her past while at the same time trying to raise children (and figure out what to tell them about their past). I interviewed the author about this book for the Genealogy Gems Podcast and it was a fun conversation.
July 16, 2018
A fascinating story about unraveling a long-ago family crime, MURDER IN MATERA is a must read for any Italian-American whose family emigrated from the Mezzogiorno. This memoir sheds light on the misery and poverty that led to mass migration in the late 1900s/early 20th century and serves as a well-needed antidote to all those bestsellers that look at Italy through rose-colored glasses. I admired the research, the vivid prose, and the author's ability to imagine/speculate what was going through the minds of her ancestors.
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