By Jeff Lipton
"It's always special to meet with them. These kids are truly amazing," said Nappi.
Despite their emotional and social disabilities, the students are able to succeed in school and in life, he said.
They were the inspiration for Nappi's second fictional novel, entitled "The Legend of Mickey Tussler," which hit bookstores on April 29 with the initial printing of 15,000 copies.
The book is about a 17-year-old pitcher who is autistic and gets discovered accidentally on a farm in Indiana by a minor league manager on a scouting trip in the 1940s.
"I always wanted to write a novel about baseball, which is my first love," said Nappi, a Massapequa resident who has taught English for 20 years at Oceanside High School.
He teaches an American Literature/U.S. History integrated course, as well as creative writing at the high school. His wife, Julia, teaches social studies at Oceanside High School and they have two sons, Nicholas, 12, and Anthony, 10.
He said the idea for the novel first came to him about two and a half years ago when he was driving home with his family from his in-laws in Buffalo and noticed the rolling hills and the sprawling farmlands. "I said to myself, 'What if a kid was out there playing sports and he was in this rural area with farm work to do?'
"And aside from a fabulous arm, the protagonist in the story has autism," Nappi added. He said he realizes that autism was not a diagnosis in the 1940s and it was probably misclassified as a form of mental retardation back then.
"I kind of have a natural liking for that period in time," said Nappi of the 1940s. "And it becomes more mysterious that the main character has autism."
He said it took him about a year and a half to write the roughly 300-page book, calling it pretty exhausting. "It's more work than anyone knows," he said, adding that editors and proofreaders read through the book over and over again. "But it's pretty gratifying seeing that book on the shelf. It's a nice feeling."
The book can be purchased at Barnes & Noble, Borders and at Amazon.com. He is scheduled to sign copies of his book at Barnes & Noble in Massapequa on June 1 at 1 p.m. and at Book Revue in Huntington on June 5 at 7 p.m.
He said "Eye in the Sky Entertainment," a production company in Los Angeles, is working on a screenplay based on Nappi's novel, but it will be set in 2008.
He said he is already working on a sequel to "Mickey Tussler."
His first book, which was printed in 2005, was called "Echoes from the Infantry," a fictional novel about World War II. He was inspired to write that after he met two veterans from the Oceanside VFW who spoke to his classes for about 10 years until one of the veterans passed away. "I kind of felt this void," he said, explaining what prompted him to write his first novel.
Comments about this story? Jlipton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
