Arts & Entertainment

Upper St. Clair Teacher, Graduate Publishes Book

The Red Triangle is a thriller/mystery novel.

A man loses his way in his marriage and professional life, suspects his rival and his wife's former lover of having something to do with it, and then, wakes up one morning to find his wife missing.

Center the whole idea around some great white sharks, and you have the thriller/mystery novel The Red Triangle, written by Upper St. Clair teacher Eric Magliocca.

Magliocca, who has taught eighth-grade English in the Upper St. Clair School District since 2009, began writing the novel in March 2008 and had it published a few months ago.

"The one thing I wanted to do and the one thing I knew I needed to do was write something that was unique in nearly every way if I was going to have it ever catch the eye of a publisher," said Magliocca, an Upper St. Clair native and 2003 USC High School graduate. "My idea centered around the Farallon Islands, which is the vertex of the Red Triangle region in northern California, and I knew that literature had left this area a secret, which I found shocking.

"It is arguably the most lethal part of our world with its high concentration of great white sharks, creatures which I think are the most terrifying in existence. I thought that, if I could somehow merge the two ideas (the aforementioned wayward man being the other), balanced by prominent themes of betrayal and deception, then I might have a story there."

A large part of the novel centers around the protagonist, Conrad Mayday, and his attempt to raise a daughter once his wife is presumed dead of a shark attack in the Farallon region. Once the daughter, Belle, reaches adolescence, he learns that she possesses an incredible intellect, one that captures the eye of a Hollywood producer who selects her for a new child quiz show.

Belle eventually reaches a prominent level of fame on the show, and then, Conrad's wife's former lover, Bran, reenters Conrad's life.

"Suspicion abounds as Conrad starts to trace the mysterious circumstances of his wife's death, leading to an ultimate scene where Conrad doubts if Belle is even his daughter," Magliocca said. "Soon, his life is in danger as he strives to solve his past in an uncertain future."

Magliocca, a 28-year-old who now lives in Cecil Township, finished the novel in 2010 and then spent two years editing and rewriting it.

"It was extremely hard to write the novel while balancing a master's degree and working full-time, but I found such excitement each time I opened my laptop to see how the novel would progress and where my imagination would take the characters," the young author said. "I think that's the most thrilling time, when you aren't even certain of your own plot's course."

After numerous edits where Magliocca said he "was required to shape the novel more to fit a particular genre, tie up loose ends, sometimes shorten passages and even remove characters and scenes," the book was finally published by Charles Towne Publishing of Charleston, SC.

"In the end, the changes made my novel much more compelling," Magliocca said.

You can buy the book here or here.


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