Novel Ripped From 30-Year-Old Headlines

Rita Schiano’s recent novel, "Painting The Invisible Man," may ring a few familiar distant bells for some people. Described as a contemporary historical fiction, the story eerie resembles the 1976 unsolved gangland-style murder of Alfred Schiano, the author’s father.

Set in Providence, Rhode Island, the story is told first person through the main character, Anna Matteo. “While researching the online archives of 'The Providence Journal,'” explained Schiano, “Anna makes a keying error that leads her to a path she’d been avoiding most of her life; on a journey inside the world of her father, Paulie Matteo, killed gangland-style more than two decades before. The way it begins for Anna is how it began for me. A simple keying error.”

In 2001, Schiano was researching the archives of the "Syracuse Post-Standard" for a client. She accidentally charged ten articles instead of the one she needed to her credit card. After retrieving her client’s news article, Schiano, a native of Syracuse, New York, began typing in names of people she knew. “Why I typed my father’s name, I’ll never know.”

Thirty-seven articles from the 1990s came up that referenced her father. “It wouldn’t have been all that strange had my father not died in 1976.” The headline that caught her attention mentioned FBI tapes where the man under surveillance “bragged” about getting away with murder. The man on the tape had been acquitted in 1979 of the murder of Schiano’s father.

“At that moment I knew I had to explore this story,” Schiano said. And it seems that the moment she made up her mind, a series of events kept pushing Schiano in that direction. “In the novel Anna quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Every time I backed away from writing this story, something would push me forward.”

For Schiano, the writing of the book was tremendously cathartic. “I had to confront truths about my father I had chosen to ignore for most of my life. Anna’s self-exploration was intensely personal.”

Despite the personal element of the story, Schiano believes the lesson is universal. “Anna’s life experience, in and of itself, is unique to her. Yet the exploration one’s personal history is what reader will relate to. Everyone has a story; everyone has a history.”

Schiano’s first novel, "Sweet Bitter Love," was published in 1997. Since then, she has contributed several short stories to journals and anthologies.

Schiano’s words are not restricted to page and screen. In 2001, Maggie Moran, CEO of KidsTerrain, Inc. commissioned her and songwriter Jamie Notarthomas to write a song for children that addressed the horrific events of September 11th. Their song, "Tiny Acts of Kindness" has played on children’s radio programs throughout the country. A second song commission for KidsTerrain, "The Magic In Me," was featured on the NPR Radio children’s show "The Zucchini Brothers."