Interview with Guglielmo D’Izzia // Emma Rhodes
This interview is presented in partnership with moorehype.
Guglielmo D’Izzia’s The Transaction is packed with action and suspense from the first lines: “I must’ve fallen asleep.” From this line onward, things only get more warped and psychologically thrilling. Every character takes extra measures to ensure that De Angelis, the narrator and morally complex protagonist—and, consequently, the readers—are left in the dark. De Angelis believes he is travelling to a small Sicilian town for a harmless real estate transaction, but finds himself in the midst of a criminal conspiracy involving a child prostitution ring and many murders. Will De Angelis—will we?—find out what really went wrong behind the seemingly easy-enough real estate transaction? What will go wrong next? There is no shortage of suspense in this novel. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but read on to see what the author himself, Guglielmo D’Izzia, has to say about this always-on-the-edge-of-your-seat psychological mystery.
Guglielmo D’Izzia was born and raised in Sicily. He's an actor, writer, cinephile, and traveller. His artistic pursuits have led him to some of the greatest cities in the world: Rome, New York City, and eventually Toronto, where he now resides. He's a proud graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. The Transaction, his debut novel, won the 2016 Marina Nemat Award. He’s currently working on his second novel.
Emma Rhodes: What inspired this novel?
Guglielmo D’Izzia: I suppose it’s a confluence of things that led me to write The Transaction. Initially the inspiration came to me in the form of snippets of images that didn’t even seem correlated, but for some reason I couldn’t get them out of my mind. Eventually a thread started to appear. Now whether that was the implicit meaning or simply my interpretation of those images, it’s hard to tell. All I knew was that the story would centre around the perils of perception. But it’s only after reading Peter Handke’s The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick that I finally knew how I was going to write it.
It’s funny how the mind works sometimes. The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick couldn’t be any more different from The Transaction, yet it had a profound influence on it. It’s the way Handke approached the narrative voice that really struck a chord with me. Throughout the novella, the reader, by design, is never allowed inside the character’s head. And that stylistic choice, however peculiar it might seem, opened up a whole new set of possibilities for me.
ER: What about Sicily made you want to set the novel there? Is there something of your own life present in the story?
GD: I was born and mostly raised in Sicily, so it seemed only natural to me to set the story on the island. This might sound like a cliché, but there’s something about growing up in Sicily that truly stays with you no matter where you are or how much time has passed.
I’m certainly not about to forget the bloodshed caused by the mafia wars of the eighties and nineties, and especially the war against the State, which resulted in the killings of two of the noblest justice crusaders, judges Falcone and Borsellino.
Things I witnessed that I wish I hadn’t; people I knew, now long dead; and the relentless sense of menace and the warped perception of moral codes I experienced in my formative years have undoubtedly influenced and helped shape this novel.
ER: What sorts of characters do you like writing more: the honourable and good, or the bad and devious?
GD: Honestly, neither. I much prefer writing characters that blur the line between good and bad. That was certainly my goal with the protagonist of The Transaction. De Angelis is a hugely conflicted character: morally corrupt, yet sympathetic.
ER: Who is your favourite character in your novel?
GD: That’s easy: De Angelis. It was not a straightforward undertaking writing this enigmatic, multilayered character, but a greatly rewarding one.
However, if I had to choose another one, I’d say Teresa. The spunky landlady was a lot of fun to write. I loved creating this strong, prickly yet endearing female character. I’m sure the readers will fall in love with her. I know I did.
ER: What is more integral to a story, in your opinion: the plot or the characters?
GD: Both. In order to tell a story, you can’t have one without the other. The Transaction walks that fairly thin line of cross-genre fiction where plot and character have equal weight. A pull in either direction, and a novel is immediately branded, for better or for worse.
ER: Do you create character charts, or something of the sort, in preparation for a novel? Do you know De Angelis inside out?
GD: I personally do not fully subscribe to the idea of charting characters in preparation for a novel. Excessive character sketching, outlining, psychological profiling, etc. can be quite detrimental, in that it could hinder the organic development of the story. This might sound a touch unorthodox, but I like to be surprised by my own characters. That’s why during the planning stage of a novel I make sure to leave room for the unexpected.
When I set out to write The Transaction, I certainly did not know everything about its protagonist, De Angelis. I had a cardinal understanding of his traits. To write characters that are as ambiguous, unpredictable, and complex as De Angelis is, I believe one must not be afraid of letting the narrative tread freely and intrinsically—even at the risk of seeming dissonance—within and beyond preset plot points, structure and story demarcations.
Moreover, if I knew everything about De Angelis, The Transaction would be an entirely different novel. By design, De Angelis defies labelling. He is the epitome of defamiliarization. And that is exactly where my interests lie.
ER: What languages do you speak? Why did you choose to include untranslated Italian within this otherwise English novel?
GD: Obviously, I’m fluent in English—or so I like to think—but my native languages are Italian and Sicilian. Technically speaking, however, Sicilian is not officially a language, but a dialect; although, it differs greatly from Italian, if not entirely. Even within Sicily the myriad of local vernaculars can vary substantially from one side of the island to the other.
As for the very few untranslated sections and occasional words sprinkled throughout the novel, they are not actually Italian, but a sort of standardized Sicilian. There are several reasons why I chose to employ untranslated vernacular. I’d say mainly to give colour and texture, to enhance the sense of place beyond mere visual stimuli, but also to underscore the protagonist’s unfamiliarity and uneasiness in those surroundings. Naturally, I could have included a glossary of terms in the book, but somehow it seemed superfluous. The approximate meaning can be quite easily extrapolated from the context.
ER: If you had to pick, what is the one moment that is central to the whole of The Transaction?
GD: There are at least a couple of moments that are central to the whole of The Transaction. But, if pressed, I would have to say the scene where the train conductor and De Angelis are having dinner in a seedy trattoria, which turns out to be a front for a child prostitution ring.
Because of the cinematic techniques—such as the Kuleshov effect—I chose to incorporate this Delphic scene in the novel, which happens early on—it holds the key to De Angelis’ predicament and foreshadows the psychological tailspin that looms ahead.
Emma Rhodes is in her final year studying English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her work has been published in The Puritan, Plenitude, Event Magazine, Sonder Midwest, FeelsZine, The Aquinian, and The New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia. She will be pursuing a masters degree at Queen’s University in the coming fall.
