NEWFANE — Vincent Panella says he is “lucky enough to have a foot in two worlds” as a writer.
His grandfather came over from Sicily in the 1900s, and Panella grew up in Queens in New York. He was an avid reader.
“A lot of books inspired my writing,” Panella says. “I read a lot of pulp fiction and Westerns. I first started writing when I was 19, an engineering student in college, and I found I didn't like [engineering.] I wrote my first novel when I was in the Army at 23. It was all about teenage frustrations. It was so bad that I burned it up.”
When writing the first story in Lost Hearts, Panella drew on the theme of a conflict between father and son, as well as the reasons his grandfather left Sicily to live in America.
“Sicily is geographically a very inspiring place. But for my grandfather, [Sicily] represented nothing but poverty.”
The stories in Lost Hearts cover such events as the formation of a teen gang, the murder of a Sicilian man's father, and a brother who decides to get revenge on his sister's boyfriend in the style of the Mad Bomber. The unifying character is Charlie Marino, who has ties to different characters in each story.
“[The stories] are written separately, linked by characters. From beginning to end, the stories are connected. There's a theme of growing up and growing old. These are stories that came from strong obsessive detail work for me. It was [originally] just a group of stories, and then I realized I could put [them] together in a collective whole.”
On his website, Panella describes his fiction as “rooted in time and place. I need to know where my characters are located, and when they exist in real time. My characters are made up of people I've known, have briefly met, or simply observed from a distance.”
Panella enjoys reading novels that have a “historical sweep,” like War and Peace. He has identified as an outside observer for most of his life, and this has contributed strongly to his writing style.
“I always felt like I've been in two worlds, and it made me feel different - it gives you an impetus to express yourself. It can be painful or funny, but it's worth preserving. I was always an outsider, which is really a gift. Seeing things from the outside gives you a chance to write from the [perspective of the] outside.”
Panella says he's tried recording events in journals, but that it's not as satisfying as fiction writing.
“I keep a journal, and what I write gradually morphs into stories. Fiction is trying to bring things to life that could be lost. Real life can be too boring or too complex to write about, so you have to give it some form.”
Panella is currently working on a novel about a murder in a Queens' schoolyard, which is also based on real events.
“The novel is about memory and accepting the past. It's about history. That's kind of the backbone of all my writing.”
Panella claims that he especially loves to read about the lives of authors. “I like to read about the way they write, and see what their lives are like. I can identify with them.”