findingphilblog

 While I wait for notes on my draft, I started to think about all the things I’ve found over the last few years. About the opinions I’ve formed and the decisions I made to write my book.

The first choice I made, as I decided to truly pursue publication, is to make the book a fictional account, based on Phil’s life, rather than a straight non-fiction book.

The reason is mostly because the journalist in me won’t let me commit to paper what I don’t know for fact. I don’t know, any more than the jury in Allegheny County 80 years ago, who started that fire. Or if it was arson at all. I don’t truly, fully know who the “bad” uncle was and the dangling mystery of Phil and Joe’s possible time in Ohio made it impossible for me to say “this is what happened.” I don’t know if Mike Natale was a man caught in a tragic circumstance or if he was a heartless brute.

So, I turn to fiction. The name of my book, at the moment, is “Francesco Fortunato.”

The name, interestingly enough, is one linked to Phil’s family many, many generations ago. For some of my regular readers, using Phil’s father’s first name for the boy who is based on Phil is confusing. But let me tell you, I could not get over the beauty of that name. Fortunato. It means fortunate or lucky. And Phil (Francesco, aka Frankie) was extremely, extremely lucky. The title could almost be “Francesco, Fortunato.”

As I said before, there were so many times during my writing where I felt as if what I was “making up” wasn’t really made up at all. Whether it was just a few good guesses based on lots of research, facts backing up the details, or something else, I feel I’ve done enough work to write knowledgeably.

But there were things I just didn’t know, and so I had to make choices. And the biggest choice of all involved the fire. I guess if it ever makes print, you’ll know how I decided. But a literary twist and an actual life are two different things.

For all the amazing, life-changing information I’ve found during my research, I have to constantly remind myself that these were real human beings. Even Grandpa. Even though he’s ‘mine,’ his life belonged to him. And my perception of it, especially because it’s been found via documents and historic records, is just that. Mine. They might be the same, but they might not.

It goes double for the people whose lives intersected with my family’s — especially someone like Marion.

I’ve tried to stick with the provable facts. But I’ve also taken some pretty large liberties. That’s fiction. Heck, that’s why finding the transcript of the Coroner’s Inquest is so important to me. If I can read the words of the testimony, I might know the truth more deeply. That truth might once again wildly shift my perception of all the characters in this drama.

The characters in the book, therefore, have their roots in my history, but are their own creations.