Trigiani relives influential roots at Saint Mary's
By SARAH RYKOWSKI
News Writer
Adriana Trigiani put Saint Mary's College in her novels not just because she went to the school, but because it fit the story and the characters.
In fact, Ave Maria Mulligan's attendance is a pivotal point of "Big Stone Gap," Trigiani's bestseller, and also affects Trigiani's upcoming novel, "Milk Glass Moon," which will come out in July of this year.
"Ave Maria went there because I wanted her to go to a women's college that was Catholic in origin," Trigiani said. In the third book, Ave Maria tries to get [her daughter] to go there, and Etta does not want to go."
"A person is really formed here," Trigiani said. "I took [Sister Jean Klene's Shakespeare] class twice, the second time I just took it to listen and enjoy and gain knowledge.
Trigiani revealed in her lecture that she had been shy, an admission met with roars of laughter from the chairs in front of her.
"I learned bravery here," Trigiani said. "Max [Westler] would make us get up and read our poetry in class. I was shy about it but the poetry really helped me. You were getting behind yourself and saying `This is what I am.'"
Trigiani was so moved by her own experiences at Saint Mary's that she could not resist a plug for the school in her books.
Trigiani ended her visit to the Saint Mary's/Notre Dame community as a guest of the Sophomore Literary Festival with a trip to her alma mater, where she spoke with The Observer, met with faculty and friends, and talked to students and staff alike about her experiences as a writer.
"If you keep falling in love with the process of writing it's easy," Trigiani said. "It is such a part of my psychology — If I didn't do it, I'd die. Everything else I do comes from writing."
Trigiani graduated from Saint Mary's in 1981 with a degree in Visual and Performing Arts and headed to New York. By the mid-1980's, Trigiani was writing for noted sitcoms like The Cosby Show and A Different World. She supplemented her income by working in the mailrooms of financial institutions.
Trigiani wrote, directed, and produced "Queens of the Bigtime," a documentary about her father's family, set in Roseto, Pa.
"I was born in Roseto," Trigiani. "We moved to Big Stone Gap when I was little."
When that film won several awards, she was approached with an offer to do her next movie. She began work on a screenplay that would eventually become "Big Stone Gap."
Once the book was finished, Trigiani gave it to Gluck and the rest is history. "Milk Glass Moon," the third installment of the "Big Stone Gap" novels, goes into production this Friday.
The plot of the third novel is especially important to Trigiani now that she is expecting her first child.
"I'm pregnant," Trigiani announced to her audiences at Notre Dame and Saint Mary's.
Six months into her pregnancy, Trigiani has no qualms about either finishing the third book, beginning the filming process on Big Stone Gap, or even starting a fourth book.
"My mother will babysit while I'm shooting the film," Trigiani said. Both of her parents still live in Big Stone Gap.
"I felt like I needed to be established before I had a baby. A year off now is not going to kill me. I think it all depends on how you live your life."
"Milk Glass Moon" comes from an old farmer's saying for a cloudy night, that there is a "milk glass over the moon." Trigiani first heard it in a poem she read while at Saint Mary's.
"The crux of the book is when you have a child and they don't turn out to be what you wanted them to be," Trigiani said. She also hinted that the book would answer readers' questions left over from the second book, "Big Cherry Holler."
The film Big Stone Gap, written, directed and produced by Trigiani, will be filmed in its natural setting. Trigiani is in the casting stage of production.
Whoopi Goldberg has agreed to play the chain-smoking Fleeta, Ave Maria's employee at the Mutual Pharmacy.
Actresses Trigiani is considering for the starring role of Ave Maria include Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei, Cate Blanchett, and Jennifer Ehle, star of A&E's Pride and Prejudice.
Casting Jack Mac, Ave Maria's love interest, is more difficult.
"Jack Mac is the American prototype, the strong silent type," Trigiani said. "As to whether she will film the second novel as well, Trigiani smiled.
"We really have to see if we fall in love with the cast of Big Stone Gap," she said. "Then we might do it."
As if that weren't enough to do, Trigiani is also thinking about a fourth novel, to be set in 1950's New York.
"I already have my fourth book that I want to do," she said. "It's a completely different vibe. It's about the life of a woman, and takes place in 1950's New York. It is based on a true story, starting in the present and then going back in time."
Max Westler, Trigiani's old creative writing and poetry professor, admires his former student.
"She started off small, but there was a progression," Westler said. "You could walk past a dormitory and hear laughter, and you would know Adri was there. Adri is going for nothing less than the entire world. What this world needs is the wisdom that comes with a good laugh."
All News Stories for Wednesday, February 13, 2002
