Linda Lappin

BIOGRAPHY

  Linda Lappin was born in Kingsport, Tennessee. She received her BA from Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Fla. and her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She has published a chapbook of poetry, Wintering with the Abominable Snowman , with kayak press of Santa Cruz, Ca.
She divides her time between the US and Italy, where she is currently teaching English language
and translation at the University of
the Tuscia in Viterbo and organizing writing workshops in Vitorchiano, a medieval town near Rome.Her essays, fiction,
poetry, travel pieces and reviews appear widely in
US periodicals. Her essays have been nominated
for the Pushcart Prize and her short fiction
has been broadcast by the BBC World Service
Radio. Active as literary translator, she has translated Carmelo Samona' and Federigo
Tozzi. She has received two NEA grants
in translation and the Renato
Poggioli Award in Translation from PEN

Interview with Linda Lappin from the Kingsport Times News

Date Published: May 21, 2005
Kingsport native publishes first novel
Author: LEIGH ANN LAUBE


Harriet Sackett, an outspoken feminist American photographer who travels the world wearing pants instead of ladylike dresses, goes to Italy to photograph Etruscan tombs. She gets more than she bargains for when she meets Federigo del Re, who claims to be a reincarnated Etruscan spirit.
"The Etruscan," (Wynkin deWorde Ltd., $26), Kingsport native Linda Lappin's first novel, is set in an area of Italy called Tuscia - Etruscan territory - in the 1920s. It's an area untouched by tourism where the people still live by ancient trades.
It's been Lappin's home for nearly a decade.
A 1971 graduate of Dobyns-Bennett High School, Lappin attended Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., and earned her master of fine arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She went to Italy on a Fulbright grant and eventually got a job teaching English at the University of Rome.
"That was in 1981. It was very exciting to live in a European capital and teach at an Italian university. I enjoyed it so much that I just stayed on," she said. "I later switched to a smaller university in a town north of Rome, Viterbo, located in Etruscan country, where I became interested in the Etruscans. Then I married an Italian in 1992, and so it looks as though I have settled down for good here."
Because of her interest in the writers and atmosphere of the early 20th century, and because of other influences, Lappin's novel opens in 1920s London and closes in 1945.
"The great English novelist, D.H. Lawrence, visited the Etruscan areas of Italy in the '20s and wrote a travel book about the Etruscans, entitled ‘Sketches of Etruscan Places,' near the end of his life. Lawrence was a very environmental-conscious writer for his times, and he hated the way mining and industrialization had destroyed the English countryside. He also felt that the then-dreadful conditions for workers in the mines and industries had reduced human beings of the early 20th century to machines. He imagined the Etruscans, who were technologically very sophisticated and also very artistically inclined, as a people who lived in harmony with nature and with their inner being, unlike modern men."
"He also believed they were the custodians of the secret of life," she said. "The Etruscans weren't very well-known in the '20s. We know much more about them today, though they still remain mysterious. Lawrence's beliefs about the Etruscans as possessors of a secret knowledge concerning the meaning of life was one of the main inspirations for my novel."Lappin's story centers on the adventures of photographer Harriet Sackett, who travels to the Tuscia to photograph and research the Etruscan tombs.
Months later, Harriet's friend Sarah, and Sarah's husband Stephen, meet up with Harriet in Florence. Sarah become deeply worried about Harriet's welfare and, on her return to London, Sarah sends her housekeeper to help for awhile. Almost immediately, the housekeeper, Mrs. Parsons, sends an urgent telegram summoning Sarah and Steven back to Italy.
Mrs. Parsons has found Harriet emaciated, on the point of collapse and unable to communicate. The atmosphere in the country cottage is deeply unsettling and the only clue to her condition is the discovery of a diary documenting a passionate relationship with the mysterious Federigo del Re.
While working on the novel, Lappin lived in a farmhouse outside the gates of the old town, with a window overlooking a gorge where dozens of tombs have been hollowed out of the rock face. While doing research, Lappin discovered that it was quite common for local people to believe they were somehow in touch with the Etruscans, who were defeated by the ancient Romans long before the birth of Christ.
"Nearly every home in the area has a collection of valuable - and nowadays illegal - Etruscan artifacts gathered by grandfathers or great-grandfathers, dug up while plowing a field or on a tomb-hunting expedition," Lappin said. "Before the Second World War, many families supplemented their income by digging up artifacts and selling them to dealers in Rome. Many people discovered tombs in their back yards or on their farmlands. Living surrounded by the evidence of a vanished and mysterious people who believed that death was only a transition to another state of being obviously had an impact on the local culture.
"So it is common, particularly in older people born before the Second World War, to feel a special connection with the Etruscans, to fantasize that they are descended from noble Etruscan families.
"I was very struck by this attitude, which partly inspired the figure of Federigo del Re. The count is really based more on characters from literature, like Healthcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights' or Mr. Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre,' than on any historical person. But after I wrote the book I learned that there was a man living in the area in the '30s and '40s, a member of a local noble family, who claimed to be in contact with the Etruscans and was himself a reincarnated Etruscan spirit. I didn't know that while I was writing the book."
Lappin, who has just completed "Katherine's Wish," a new novel based on the life of writer Katherine Mansfield, plans to return to Kingsport in August to visit her parents.
Lappin is still trying to work out distribution for "The Etruscan" in the United States, she said. "The best way to get it at present is through the British amazon, www.amazon.co.uk It's very easy to order the book from them. There is also an online Irish bookstore, www.kennys.ie, that will ship at cheap prices all over the world."
Lappin is also helping organize writers workshops for American universities and colleges through her organization Centro Pokkoli. She will bring the Kenyon Review Writing Workshop from Kenyon College, in Ohio, to Vitorchiano in June, followed by a group from Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C.For more information on Lappin, her books or the writers workshops, visit www.lindalappin.net, www.TheEtruscan.com and www.pokkoli.com.