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Breaking the Silence An Interview with Tina De Rosa lisa a. meyer 1999 When Tina De Rosa wrote her novel Paper Fish, the room where she worked was haunted. Not by ghosts and goblins, but by childhood memories. To write the book, she had to let the emotions that came with those memories rush through her. Once again, she had to feel grief, loneliness, and bewilderment. The result is an extraordinary novel. Paper Fish is about an Italian-American family, certainly, but a lot more. It is about unspeakable suffering, discovery and healing, and the process of creating a new reality. It is a book about Carmolina BellaCasa. Her family is in pieces. Its members are overwhelmed by the 1950s socioeconomic forces that have disordered their lives. Carmolina’s father, Marco, is an overworked Chicago policeman who will always be a department peon because of his Italian heritage . Her Lithuanian mother, Sarah, feels disoriented amid her husband’s culture. Carmolina’s grandmother, who emigrated from Italy, escapes through stories. Weaving folklore with Christianity, she spins tales in an effort to order her life. Carmolina’s sister, Doriana, can’t speak. As an infant, she had a high fever that damaged her brain. She can scream, cry, and thrash against the ropes that bind her to her blue-sheeted bed. She is beautiful. She is angry. She is in pain. She represents the dispossession and suffering of De Rosa’s bruised and broken characters. Doriana even serves as a metaphor for the history of the book itself. Paper Fish, too, was silenced for a while. It was published the first time sixteen years ago by a small house. Then it fell out of print, rejected as too literary 177 178 Lisa A. Meyer to make money. But devotees kept it alive by photocopying it and giving it to scholars and other writers, until the Feminist Press revived it. The Zora Neale Hurston of Italian-American culture, Tina De Rosa is a pioneer. She has told an uncommon story in a unique voice. An ethnic woman from the working class, De Rosa is no stranger to socioeconomic and literary ghettos. But the story of her upbringing is now in a highly lit arena. She has created a path out of the ghettos so that other writers may follow. De Rosa’s literary voice is lyrical, emotive, and imagistic. Her speaking voice is soft. She is compassionate and playful. She also is serious and opinionated . She is more comfortable chatting with a cab driver than greeting a crowd of her fans. As she talks during dinner, in a busy restaurant just outside of Chicago, she is wearing a forest-green T-shirt that belongs to her sister—the brain-damaged young girl who appears in Paper Fish. [This interview, published in 1999, dates from February 1997.] Lisa Meyer: What did it feel like sixteen years ago when Paper Fish went so quickly out of print? Tina De Rosa: It was painful and disappointing, because the initial publication caused such a stir. I had poured my heart into this book. LM: What does it feel like now that it’s back in print? TD: I can’t quite pinpoint yet how I feel. It’s very moving to see the incredible response that people are giving it. But I feel like a different person now. I am not the person who wrote Paper Fish. LM: Why and how are you different? TD: Well, a lot has happened in sixteen years. A writer really writes from his or her unconscious. To recreate the unconscious I had when I wrote Paper Fish is difficult. LM: Has this recent spotlight on Paper Fish [as a result of its 1996 reissue by The Feminist Press at CUNY] affected your writing? TD: I don’t have much time to write. It’s made me wish that I had more time. I finished another manuscript, about two years ago. For me, there’s at least three or four years between manuscripts. After I finish a book, I’m convinced that I have nothing else to say. It’s like getting pregnant. So far, I’m not pregnant yet. Except for poems. LM: Did you intend to create Paper Fish as a multiperspective, nonchronological text? TD: No. When people called it High Modern, I laughed. It was a style that came naturally. To me, Paper Fish is a long poem that tells a story. When [3.128.203.143] Project...

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