Interview with Michael C. Vassallo, Author of Agatha’s Angel
Today, I’m interviewing Michael C. Vassallo, author of Agatha’s Angel.
First, tell us about yourself. I’m a New Yorker, born and raised. However, since I was a young kid, I have always had a fascination with the Philadelphia area due to having family friends in the area. Then when I went to college at Villanova, my love for it grew to the point at which I almost moved there, but my love for my family kept me in New York, unlike the stubborn John Palmaccio in my story.
I’ve always been surrounded by the Catholic faith and have always been inspired by spiritual people and soul searching, even though I didn’t always know it was called that. I love retreats and the Rosary and attending various spiritual talks when I can, and of course, I love movies about Christ.
I’ve also loved writing since I was a young kid. My inspiration for that dawned when I was in kindergarten watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons. At first, I wanted to draw, but then once I learned to read and write in the first grade, I would come up with picture books, and then one day I ditched the drawing and switched to writing only. Back then, my stories were more slapstick without any plots, and they involved funny incidents happening to classmates and teachers – in fact, I got spoken to by the teacher for that! Haha! But I always kept up my writing, and I had a reputation for it. I continued with it in high school, mainly known for being part of the school newspaper. In college, I hardly did any writing, except for one newspaper article and a couple of yearbook articles my senior year – oh, and some journals. After college, I wrote a book called An Angel in Disguise but then decided it was kind of lame, so I haven’t done much in terms of getting it out there. I wrote a few things here and there, but nothing all that serious. At the time, I was balancing work in a cutthroat environment with bosses that I didn’t like, managing bills and adjusting to married life, until in July 2009, the inspiration for Agatha’s Angel came to me, and the rest is history!
As far as other hobbies, I am a huge fan of all sorts of music, although I would say that 1970s disco and 1980s rock are definitely up there for me. I also love the 1960s group The Vogues. I’m always playing music and singing, and I love laughter and doing voice impersonations. I have a reputation for knowing a lot of good jokes. I’m always up for going for walks, and I love running and working out when I can.
Regarding food, two of my biggest weaknesses are Nestle Crunch bars and Buffalo wings!
As a writer, I am also a big fan of movies and entertainment. Sylvester Stallone is one of my favorite actors – hey, he created “Rocky,” and “Rocky” takes place in the city that I love! I love Star Wars. I also love horror, especially movies like “The Nun” and the “Halloween” franchise.
Last but not least, I am married and have two beautiful children. They both have autism, which has come with challenges, but I adore them and wouldn’t trade them for the world, not even for the chance to become famous for my writing.
What is Agatha’s Angel about, and how long have you been working on the novel? Agatha’s Angel chronicles a young man at a crossroads in his life after the premature deaths of his mother and fiancée. In fact, his lamenting over his mother’s death indirectly causes the death of his fiancée, but I’ll let the audience read the book to find out why. After graduating from college, in which he felt popular in campus ministry and seemed to have found his purpose, he joins the Peace Corps, but even that can’t shake the depression he feels over his deceased fiancée. This is only compounded by his boring job, his love-hate relationship with his father, his apparent lack of ambition, and his lack of confidence in the dating arena. Then when he haphazardly meets a girl who seems almost too perfect, things begin to turn around for him. When he learns about the girl’s medical history and she recruits him to help support her cause, his life takes on a new meaning, but he still has bullets to dodge – from his skeptical, bigoted father, from his raunchy friends, from a boss who doubts his ability to be worth anything, and from an admirer who happens to be the daughter of his Peace Corps director.
I worked on the book for 15 years. One day at work, back in July 2009, the inspiration hit me, and I began writing ideas down about breast cancer awareness events and life-changing, spiritual experiences in exotic places and meeting rare people. I didn’t finish the first draft until February 2017 – that’s seven and a half years after having started it, but when I finished the second draft in July 2021, that was when I got professionals involved in helping me. Then three years later, I was done, and here I am!
What was the inspiration for your book? That’s an interesting question. Like my main character, John, I was on the train heading to work on a rainy Monday morning, and I was at a bit of a crossroads myself. There was a young lady who caught my eye – and I apparently had also caught hers! Haha! We started talking, but instead of talking about what bar to go to on Friday nights to get hammered, she started hitting me with all these deep, philosophical comments that I didn’t expect. She spoke in a voice so low that she could have used a microphone, but her words were very impactful and encouraging. When we got off the train, she handed me a pocket-sized Gospel book in which she had written an incredibly inspirational note, told me she considered it an act of fate that we wound up on the train together, patted my hand, and disappeared. I never saw her again, but that’s okay because seven years later when I remembered the incident, I decided to incorporate that episode into what became Agatha’s Angel. Also, reflecting on that encounter has also motivated me to be a better man – a better family man to my wife and kids as well as to society in general. She had given me a mission to carry out, and I did it. I think she’d be proud of me for that.
After we parted ways, I remember telling myself I thought she was cute, but then I justified my refusal to pursue her because I assumed my parents wouldn’t approve of a girl who wasn’t white. While writing Agatha’s Angel, I remembered that and told myself, “Hmmm. Let me have a little bit of fun with that!” That inspired Ralph’s racism.
My inspiration also came from having watched the movie “First Blood.” That was the movie that kicked off the “Rambo” series. The summer that I started writing the book, I was big into war movies. I was impressed with the concept of a Vietnam veteran wandering the streets until he gets picked up by the police, only to get into various altercations with them, which weren’t helped by his post-traumatic stress. It reminded me a little bit of feeling like a fish out of water when I first graduated from college where I was surrounded by people who seemed to love me and fun campus ministry activities to surround myself with. Then I went out into the real world where many people didn’t seem to care, and that made me angry, but it made me sympathize with the character, and it inspired me to come up with John Palmaccio’s character. I combined his fish-out-of-water conflict with my chance encounter on the train and made a story out of it. That girl had been religious, so I spent a lot of time seeking inspiration from various Catholic outlets to help fuel the story. I also juxtaposed much of that with real-life issues, such as the crazy things that twentysomethings do when they start their lives, hoping that those two universes colliding would provide a good sense of the conflict within John. For some bizarre reason, the movie “Saving Private Ryan” served as the inspiration for Amy’s father going overseas to do missionary work, just as the men in that movie were in France, fighting during World War II.
Are any of the characters in Agatha’s Angel based on people from your circle of family and friends? Amy is based on a combination of people – one of them being my wife, another being a friend of mine, and another being my assessment of the young lady I met on the train. The rest of her was fabricated by my imagination.
John’s father, Ralph, is also based on a combination of people. His tough persona and his sense of humor are based on my dad’s, but I never left my dad hanging the way John did. But don’t get the wrong impression because my dad is one of my favorite people in the world! In fact, when I told him that certain episodes in the book were based on real-life events involving him and me, he laughed. I think he liked that! Ralph was also inspired by several other people, particularly, the fathers-in-law of certain family members.
Deacon Luke was inspired by two religious deceased uncles of mine.
Keith was very loosely based on somebody I knew from high school who at one time bothered me, but then we became very friendly with each other. Unlike John, I never fought with him, and I never will.
Doug was based on a man who helped me transition from life after college into young adulthood. I considered that man a role model and a bit of a mentor. He was very encouraging and supportive.
Lastly, John was based on a combination of people – he has my analytical but silly mannerisms, but he was also loosely inspired by Sylvester Stallone’s characters Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, both of whom were two of my favorite fictional characters when I first started writing this. Sadly, he also originally got some inspiration from the late James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano, but after a few people complained about John being meaner and more aggressive in earlier drafts, John’s persona was softened.
What drew you to writing this type of book? I wanted to write a combination of something romance, something inspirational, and something adventurous. I can be a very adventurous person, and I wanted to throw that in there by making John a Peace Corps volunteer. He is wanderlust, and that adds to the boredom in his life until he meets the angelic Amy.
What do you hope the reader will take away from your book? I’m hoping that the reader will enjoy the spiritual aspects of John and Amy’s journey, the adventure they embark on in Philadelphia for the annual breast cancer marathon, as well as the playful romantic banter between them. Hopefully, this story will inspire the reader and make him or her feel as though he or she is also on a journey. Lastly, I hope the book will draw laughter, as several periods of the story are designed around that to add to the more spiritual and, at times, more dramatic, segments.
How do you find time to write? At this point in my life, it’s a bit difficult since I have to be at work at 6 AM, and my job is a good hour away from my house. A lot of times, I don’t get home until 5 or 6 PM, so that doesn’t leave me with a lot of time for myself. However, I’m a Vassallo. We’re fighters. I am very confident that the right time will come for me to write again, but I’m glad I finished Agatha’s Angel when I did. Back in 2011, after I graduated with my MBA, I had my lunch hour at work to pen much of the story, so that came in mighty handy. Other times, I was at the mercy of working on it at night after my family members went to bed – if I had motivation and wasn’t that tired, of course. I was even out of work for a bit, so that time came in handy as well.
Are you working on any other writing projects? Currently, no, although I have a few ideas for future projects. One idea, in particular, is a story about a father of two autistic children who is thrown on a journey of soul-searching and rediscovering what it means to be a man. I actually wrote a blog post called “Are You Man Enough?” based on that idea, hoping to turn it into a series. I got the title from a song by the Four Tops. I think that could do even better than Agatha’s Angel. And speaking of which, I think I’ve discovered the cure for the “loneliness” that comes when an author says farewell to his or her characters. That cure is to write either a prequel or a sequel novel with those same characters, or at least some of them. Turning it into a series will keep them alive for a long time.
Other than that, my main focus right now is promoting “Agatha” and also getting my household more organized, spending more time with my beautiful wife and children, enjoying my new job in the transportation industry, and reading other people’s books. As an author, I feel I would be a dirtbag to not read other people’s stuff, but I enjoy reading anyway, and hopefully, now I’ll have the time. In fact, about three years ago, my editor put a book out that I really liked! However, many people have been asking me what’s next, and I tell them – truthfully, of course – that I have ideas for another book, but right now, I just don’t feel like working on it. Perhaps one day, the motivation that I need will come. For now, I’m okay with that not happening right away.
Who are some of your favorite authors? As a child, I was fascinated with Charles Dickens, but nowadays, William Paul Young, who wrote The Shack, would be up there. That’s one of my favorite novels, and the movie was awesome, too! I also like Lorna Byrne, who writes a lot about angels. In fact, her first book, Angels in My Hair, was a big hit for me in 2011 as I worked on my own story. I also have a family friend who published a Wall Street novel two years ago, and I really liked it!
To purchase Agatha’s Angel, click here!
