By Mary Cristy

In l999 I met New Haven author and icon, Virginia Marangell, who had just republished “Gianna Mia,” a novel about Italian emigrants set in the historic Wooster Square area of New Haven, Conn. I had just self-published my “Chicken Tonight-Feathers Tomorrow” electronically.

In a serendipitous twist of fate, Virginia’s Los Altos Hills nephew, Robert Marangell, had shared a copy of his aunt’s book with our mutual friend Cathie Perga. Cathie had just finished “Chicken Tonight” and noted striking similarities between Virginia’s book and mine. “You should know each other,” she urged. I traded books with Virginia, and we became pen pals.

Twenty-four years earlier, Virginia’s title had been published by Dodd, Mead and Company as a “young adult” novel and won acclaim. When the publisher phased out that genre, “Gianna Mia” returned to Virginia. Through the years, Virginia wrote and sold countless scripts to religious and secondary slick markets, while the thrill of another published novel eluded her. Still she persisted, garnered endless rejections and dreamed of another breakthrough.

“The only reason I got to write four Italian novels was that 60 years ago Joseph Marangell, an Italian-American, came to buy my brother’s old car,” Virginia said. “We fell in love, married and reared four sons. As a Swedish-American from another part of town, I became enchanted with Italian culture. I learned to cook Italian and my Italian cooking finds its way into all my books. My writing springs out of my life experiences.”

As a teen-aged tubercular, Virginia was confined to a sanitarium for two years, left to cure herself and spent three years in recovery. Lingering illness precluded formal education. A year and a half of high school, one year of business school and two correspondence school courses were implemented by home study.

“Another influence has been the loss of my whole family,” Virginia said. “My 21-year-old dean’s list college senior was shot by a jealous rival over a girl. A decade later his twin was found dead of heart failure.” Her stepson, “who was like a son to me,” died a few years ago. Six years ago her beloved husband, Joe, died; and last year their middle-aged son, whose 48-year-old wife had predeceased him, died for want of a kidney transplant.

At 75, the widow embarked on a new career as a one-woman publishing company. “Gianna Mia” was reborn gloriously as the Italian-American community took its heroine and author to its collective heart. Honors came thick and fast from churches, schools, local clubs and history buffs. The book was listed on recommended reading lists for students and excerpted by the Italian Reader’s Digest. After 24 years, Virginia had become an overnight sensation! “A Time for All Things” followed “Gianna Mia” into print. That was followed by “Feast of Angels.”

Virginia turned 80 last July. In October “Wooster Square,” her fourth Italian-American novel, was received enthusiastically by her many fans. “Wooster Square” depicts romantic La Jolla. A third of the book is set there.

“Anyone familiar with these areas will reminisce, especially about La Jolla’s beautiful La Valencia Hotel and the Cove, where for more than 20 years my husband and I spent summers at the Inn by the Sea, now Best Western. I still have the key to our room, 206,” Virginia said.

Retirement at 80? Not likely! Virginia’s one-woman mini-empire puts her almost on a par with the saints her Italians commemorate on feast days; or Columbus, whose October anniversary is honored zealously in beautiful Wooster Square. This October found Virginia at Barnes and Noble in New Haven, signing copies of her fourth novel.

Be it New Haven, La Jolla or the Swedish neighborhood where she wrote her first tentative manuscripts, Virginia creates a sense of place with unerring accuracy and transports readers to a world and a time that we’d all do well to emulate and remember even if it lives on only in our dreams.