UNICO

PEOPLE
Newsmakers
Top of the
mountain
by Jim Distasio
Adriana Trigiani, perhaps the most
prolific and heartfelt chroniclers of the Italian-American
experience in publishing
today, is going home.
A bestselling author of more than a
dozen novels and memoirs, an acclaimed
playwright and seriously funny writer/producer
of series television,
Trigiani can now add cinematic
auteur to her resume.
Trigiani is making
her big-screen debut as a
writer and director with
“Big Stone Gap,” a
charming adaptation of
her beloved 2001 novel,
starring Ashley Judd,
Patrick Wilson and
Whoopi Goldberg. The
film hits theaters on Oct.
9, and marks not only a
return to the novel that
started it all but also to
the real-life Virginia coal
mining town of the same
name that serves as the
film’s backdrop and Trigiani’s hometown.
The novel of the same name is a warm,
funny and inspirational tale about Ave
Maria Mulligan, a spitfire spinster who
runs the family pharmacy in her small Appalachian
town and whose life and very
identity get turned inside out following the
death of her mother. Like so many protagonists
in Trigiani’s canon, Ave Maria is a
proud Italian-American woman who’s defined
not just by an ethnicity that sets her
apart in an otherwise homogenous community,
but also by her inner-strength and grit.
Trigiani, who devotes a sizable amount
of her time and energy to discussions and
online book club meet-ups in the service of
her fans, says Ave’s devotion to making
other people happy, even if it means sacrificing
her own wants, has made her a relatable
and enduring heroine.
“People return to this character because
they understand her loneliness and
her otherness. They get her,” she says.
Before Trigiani ever conceived “Big
Stone Gap” as a novel, it started out as a
screenplay following a life-changing trip
the author took to Italy to visit family near
the Italian Alps. There, she says, she saw
the parallels of her American family settling
in the shadow of mountains and her
Italian ancestors making their home in similar
terrain. Eventually, Trigiani transformed
her screenplay into a novel, which
in turn spawned three successful sequels
— “Big Cherry Holler,” “Milk Glass Moon”
▲ ADRIANA TRIGIANI
Unabashedly Italian American in life as
well as art, she has added screenwriting
to her already lofty authorial resume
with the imminent release of the movie
version of her novel, “Big Stone Gap.”
and “Home to Big Stone
Gap.”
The mountains would
prove to be a perpetual font
of inspiration for Trigiani.
“Throughout my career writing
books, I returned to that
mountain path again and
again. It’s a metaphor for me.
It’s the climb, putting one
step ahead of the other,” Trigiani
says.
Trigiani’s father, a garment
manufacturer, grew up
in Roseto, Penn., an Italian-
American enclave famous for
its close-knit community and
unusually low instance of
heart disease in the mid-20th
century. (Inspired by her
grandfather’s home movies, Trigiani made
a documentary on this subject in 1996.) He
and his wife, a librarian, raised their seven
children in Big Stone Gap, Va. Trigiani’s
grandparents hail from northern Italy, near
Veneto and Bari.
Ave Maria is in some ways an avatar
for Trigiani’s early life — an Italian-American
growing up in the South, culturally
marooned outside of her own family. “I
was bestowed with this insanely ornate
name that reminds people every day that
I’m Italian,” she says. “I’m always Italian.
Continues on page 60 …
FRA NOI for ComUNICO September 2015 59