Per understanding the meaning of things it is good not to look at them too closely. It is the rule of the vegetable garden: until you hold the leaves the pain of the stings. You feel it only when you leave your grip. It is the popular saying that follows Bea Navarra, forensic graphologist, committed to investigating a Cold Casea mysterious alleged suicide in Catania in 1965.
When graphology resolves the mystery
Norma hope, a young man of good family, takes his own life with a rifle and leaves a ticket: “Everything is destroyed and I kill myself.” Sixty years later, his nephew Simonetta and his sister Violetta turn to Navarra because they are convinced that instead the norm was killed by her husband, Andrea Longo. The farewell message would not be authentic. Who wrote it?
With the help of the journalist friend Domenico Grimaldi, the graphologist interview the protagonists of the story, reconstructs the facts and scientifically studies those few words left. Until you get to the truth, which captures everyone by surprise. The rule of the garden is the first novel by Nunzia Scalzo, Sicilian and forensic graphologist as its protagonist. An original character in the panorama of literary investigators, who brings one to the pages Fascinating and little known profession.
Bea Navarra already has all the characteristics of a serial character. Can you introduce you to readers?
It is a forensic graphologist, at the service of justice, in civil and criminal cases, but also consultant for private citizens. His work, which is then mine, is to study writing, graphic signs, not only as a mechanical act, but also as a product of cognitive processes, engines and brain. It is very stubborn and out of the box. When fixing on one case it goes all the way. Instead, I have to follow rigid protocols and I could never be so reckless.
Nunzia Scalzo lives and works in Sicily as a forensic graphologist.
Nunzia Scalzo, from reality to fiction
What are the most common cases that happen to you?
I work a lot on holographic will, to understand if they are authentic, on miner messages, intimidating writings on the walls, anonymous letters, alleged suicide tickets. Not only to study the shape of the individual letters, but also the pressure that is done on the pen, the rhythmic trend of graphic signs. With modern instruments we can also analyze the fibers of the paper and the type of ink. Our work is scientific, based on rigorous, coded and recognized standards.
In the novel the protagonist claims that there is a relationship between suicidal tendencies and the graphic signs of writing. Is this really the case?
Yes, even if farewell tickets are always an enigma. Writing is not only the words that are written, but a sort of digital imprint of mental activity, which provides information on how we feel when we write. It can tell us, for example, if we are tense or relaxed. And, unlike DNA, the subtle footprints of the spelling persist over time, they do not deteriorate.
The rule of Nunzia Scalzo’s garden, Feltrinelli256 pages, 15 €
Is the book inspired by a true story?
Yes, I had learned years ago: a Miss of Catania apparently had fired with a rifle. I did research on that case and then I put it in the hands of Bea Navarra.
Why did you choose a Cold Case, a case of sixty years old?
It gave me the opportunity to work on two different time plans of the narrative and to highlight the difference between the means of a long time and the tools we have available today.
Audio notes, interrogations, confessions, diary pages: he used several stratagems to tell the past and the present. Why this structure?
To give rhythm to the novel and to make sure that all the characters, in their own way, each brought a piece of truth, little by little. Some could not be interrogated by the graphologist and so I had to invent narrative expedients.
The husband usually hope is described as a scoundrel or like a good boy. Also norm and friend Evelina are ambiguous characters …
I played on the unreliability of the human being. I wanted to tell the ballet of roles that we often all carry on, the masks that we put according to who we meet. I see him every day in court. Sometimes a lawyer arrives who flaunts swagger, then I see him sign the cards and his writing reveals a profound anxiety. It is difficult to reach absolute truth.
For this reason, in the beginning and in the final he writes: “Winners and won everyone resembles each other”?
Yes. Winners and losers mix continuously, those who seem to triumph perhaps succumbs. We all look like in the Greek tragedy. It simply depends on the point of view, there is never a univocal reading of reality.
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