June 6, 2008

World War II Incident Inspires Local Author

By Annie Gentile

Special to the Journal Inquirer

On June 13, 1942, four German saboteurs landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island. Loaded with explosives and incendiaries, their mission was to destroy vital equipment manufacturing facilities and strike fear into the hearts of the American people.

Four days later another group of four with similar plans landed on a beach near Jacksonville, Fla. Within days, all eight men were captured without their having carried out a single act of sabotage. While the FBI initially took credit for the Germans undoing, it was later revealed that two of the eight would-be saboteurs, claiming to be anti-Nazi and turned in the others.

Long forgotten or more likely never even known by most Americans, this incident became the catalyst for a novel by South Windsor resident Lynn Chirico. Galilee Beach is the fictional tale of 12-year-old Margaret Kennedy who along with her newfound cohort, Oboy, harbors one such enemy combatant. Part coming-of-age story, part morality tale, Margaret and Oboy must make some tough decisions and take a good hard look at how we label someone an enemy.

Chirico is more than just a history buff. She has a masters degree in Latin American history, a doctorate in European history, and a lifetime of experiences that could fill more than one book. Her own story started out in New Jersey, where she spent her summers at Galilee Beach that setting being the only non-fictional aspect of her novel. Later she earned her bachelors degree in social work from Syracuse University and served as a probation officer, until marriage took her away to Westfield, Mass. There, her husband briefly served as mayor and they raised five children, one of whom they adopted from Hong Kong.

When you have four children, having five really isn't any different, says Chirico with a laugh.

When her youngest was of school age, and perhaps itching for adventure, Chirico opened a travel agency and began traveling the world checking out various accommodations and sights for her clients. Five years later she found herself packing and moving to Marbella, Spain.

I had four kids with me, and none of us could speak the language, says Chirico. How we survived it and fell in love with it well that's another book all together.

The family eventually took up residence in a former 15th century convent attached to a Catholic church.

We'll never have a home like that again, she says with a sigh. It was in the heart of Marbella and my romantic idea of what Spain was really like.

While in Marbella, Chirico opened a restaurant that served international food. By then her first marriage had come to an end. An old friend from Manchester who had come to live with her for a year had begun playing matchmaker, fixing her up with a professor from Manchester Community College named Roland Chirico. The two became involved in a literary group, rubbing elbows with various writers and others involved in the arts. Eventually, Roland took a year-long sabbatical to join her in Spain where she assisted him on his dissertation and served as a Spanish language interpreter.

It was really the best year of our lives, she says.

With the death of Franco, democracy came to Spain and along with it prosperity. The quaint Spain that Chirico had come to love had changed, and after years of commuting back and forth from Marbella to Roland's home in South Windsor, Chirico sold her home and moved back permanently to the States.

When one of her sons was preparing to come out of the service, she took out paperwork from the University of Connecticut for him to go for his masters degree. However, when her son changed his mind about school, never one to be idle, Chirico embarked on her masters degree herself, which she promptly followed up with her doctorate. The educational process would be 10 years in the making and emphasized quite the age gap between her and her fellow students.

It was a little scary, says Chirico. I was surrounded by all these sharp young kids, and it was a long time since I had been taking tests. But it was fun, too.

The literary work she did in Spain and all the papers she wrote in school started a fire brewing. Chirico joined a writing group with members of her church that, despite her several starts and stops, encouraged her to keep going at Galilee Beach. (The group) really carried me along, says Chirico.

The message Chirico aims to share in her novel is the same one she has drawn from her own lifetime of experiences. People are people. We're all the same, says Chirico.

She says during wartime, the government had to work hard at getting the American people to make enemies. Living in Europe gave me a larger perspective — a world view.