Download Murder in Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy AudioBook Free
A writer goes deep in to the heart and soul of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that mixes the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional understanding of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid stories about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who possessed murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one on the way. Helene's fresh obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight. Finding answers would take Helene 10 years and numerous excursions to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy's boot - a mountainous land rife with scammers, superstitions, old-world traditions, and eager poverty. Though phony leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene's dogged search, aided by the few blessed - even miraculous - breaks and a group of colorful local personas, led her to the reality. Yes, the family stories she'd heard were true. There have been a murder in Helene's family, a getting rid of that roiled 1870s Italy. However the identities of the killer and victim weren't who she thought these were. In revisiting occurrences that happened more than a century before, Helene emerged to some other stunning realization - she wasn't who she thought she was, either. Weaving Helene's own storyline of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita's life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into emphasis an extended ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable because of its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
