Zampanò

**Zampanò** (Johnny Truant: **Z.**) (from 1908-1917 to Jan. 6, 1997) was an unidentified man living around Los Angeles, California. At the time of his death from natural causes in 1997, he was 80 years old or older. Zampanò is believed to have been an American, though he spoke with an accent and may have been an immigrant of Italian origin.

Zampanò suffered from graphomania despite completely blindness for most of his life. He wrote at least two things, both of which were published only posthumously in the heavily edited work House of Leaves: The Navidson Record and a warning note to the finder of The Navidson Record.

Zampanò lived a poor and isolated life. He died penniless. He never married or had children, and despite extensive efforts no relatives or friends have been located.

## Life.

The identity of Zampanò is a mystery, and even the authenticity of his name is the subject of fierce debate among scholars. The man used "Zampanò" on all documentation discovered so far: his apartment lease "and on several other fragments." As a result, Zampanò may have been either a true legal surname or a pseudonym.

Zampanò is first introduced by Johnny Truant as "this old guy" living in a first floor apartment. He lived in the same apartment complex as Lude. According to Lude, Zampanò had lived in that building "for many years," keeping to himself, and taking morning and evening walks around the courtyard.

Zampanò took great pains to eliminate any ventilation in his apartment, sealing the doors, windows, and vents, which made his apartment smell. However, he was not afraid of the outside world. He took walks around the courtyard of his building each day, once in the morning around 7:00 AM and another in the evening, and he braved Los Angeles' public transportation to go on occasional trips to the beach. Truant reasons that he sealed his apartment in an effort to retain "the various emanations of his things and himself." (*See also* Zampanò's apartment*.*)

### Early life.

Zampanò's early life is largely unknown, though he may have immigrated to the United States from Italy. He was born between 1908 and 1917.

Zampanò started losing his vision in early life, and was completely blind by the mid-1950s.

### Relationships.

Zampanò is believed to have had past heterosexual romances. One volunteer recounted finding Zampanò weeping and in a deep depression. She fixed him tea, and he said that his tears were from "old heart-ache matters." However, Zampanò declined to reveal his paramore's name. According to Truant, Zampanò occasionally mentioned seven names during moments of depressive nostalgia: Béatrice, Gabrielle, Anne-Marie, Dominique, Eliane, Isabelle, and Claudine.

Despite his solitary lifestyle, he actively sought the company of women. All of his volunteers were women, and he is said to once admitted, "[T]here is no greater comfort in my life than those soothing tones cradled in a woman's words."

## Writing

Zampanò wrote many works in his life, though never finished any of them. He suffered from graphomania, an obsessive impulse to write, which did not subside as he lost his vision in the mid-1950s. Two items were published posthumously in House of Leaves, The Navidson Record and a note, but Truant alludes to other works as well, including some that were near-completion. Even the day before he passed, he was busily working on The Navidson Record, which he called "his masterpiece" and "his precious darling."

### Writing The Navidson Record

*See also* The Navidson Record.

At an unknown date at least years before his death in 1997, Zampanò began researching and writing in preparation for his *magnum opus*, The Navidson Record, about about an eponymous documentary from the early 1990s. He had a private library of "strange, pale books," half of which were in braille, but he often convinced volunteers from community centers, The Braille Institute, USC, UCLA, and Santa Monica College to visit him and read. Many of these volunteers spoke with Truant between 1997 and 1998 and became a valuable window into Zampanò's life.

## Personal life.

Perspectives on Zampanò from those who knew him vary widely, usually due in part to his solitary lifestyle. His volunteers, when asked, believed him to be everything from a romantic to "certifiably mad."

Zampanò lived an austere life, and never drank or smoked.

Zampanò is frequently mistaken as a morbid or dark man, but Zampanò possessed a rich, wry, and dry sense of humor that often delved in morbid and ironic subject matter. Truant believes he invented sources and false quotes in The Navidson Record about a fictitious documentary *The Navidson Record* in part because of his sense of humor. The author often wrote in graphic visual terms concerning light, space, and depth about the film despite being completely blind, an irony Truant calls "his biggest joke."

## Death.

In late 1996, the stray cats of the apartment complex began disappearing. By December 1996, Zampanò told Lude that he would die soon.

On January 5, 1997, the day before he died, a volunteer visited Zampanò and helped him edit The Navidson Record. The same day, perhaps at night, Zampanò seems to have haphazardly shoved the surviving writings of The Navidson Record to the side of the room. He added a note to anyone who came across The Navidson Record that wished prosperity to the discoverer and provided directions concerning its publication.

Zampanò died on January 6 of natural causes, the same day the last stray cat of the building vanished. He was in his 80s, possibly 80 years old. His absence was first noticed by Lude and another tenant of the complex just after 7:00 AM, when Zampanò failed to take his morning walk.

Lude discovered Zampanò lying face down on the floor of his apartment that evening after obtaining a key from the building manager. While Truant states that his corpse was surrounded "by things that don't mean much to anyone," there were at least two points of particular interest to him and Lude: four long gouges in the wood floor, perhaps made by a claw, and The Navidson Record. (*See also* Zampanò's apartment for further discussion of the room at the time of death.) The claw marks and Truant's later description of The Navidson Record as "*mauled*" has led some to guess that the Minotaur has a hand in the author's death. Paramedics removed the body by nightfall, and after investigation the death was ruled to be of natural causes.

Shortly thereafter, Truant and Lude robbed Zampanò's apartment.

## Commentary.

Every once in a while, someone comes forward claiming to be Zampanò's child or nephew or cousin or something, and every time the claim is debunked. The most promising candidates come from the work of independent sleuths and academic genealogists. Two separate Zampanò families have been found and interviewed, both in Sicily, who have missing relatives and long-lost siblings. For a couple years, a small cadre believed Eustacio Zampanò was their dog.

Eustacio was born in 1913 or 1914 in Palermo, Italy (records conflict). He avoided military service due to poor eyesight and instead worked during the war in a steel mill and as a laborer at an olive grove. In 1956, Eustacio emigrated to Miami, Florida where he worked as a mechanic at a five-bay auto shop, mostly changing brakes, tires, oil, and clutches. As he grew older, his already poor vision worsened. He moved to California in 1972 to work the desk in a friend's newly opened automotive "emporium." Eustacio's family lost contact with him after that.

Unfortunately, subsequent research has firmly precluded any possibility Eustacio was the Zampanò behind The Navidson Record. Eustacio reappeared in 2009 lawsuit, sick with mesothelioma, when he sued a plethora of brake and clutch companies for exposure to asbestos. Even if we suppose that Truant lied about Zampanò's death, none of the other facts add up. In a copy of the deposition record of *Zampanò v. Matton-Early Brakes, et al.*, Eustacio stated that he lived only in Sacramento, California since 1972 - apart from a brief stint in Salem, Oregon in the late 1990s to stay with his daughter's family after Eustacio's wife of 45 years passed away.

1. ↑ Zampanò is a surname of Italian stock. Zampanò is also the name of a character from *La Strada*. Given the film was released in 1954 and Zampanò's advanced age, it is possible he had seen the film as a man, perhaps even seeing it in Italy.
2. ↑ Truant states that Zampanò told Lude this around 1996, and that they robbed the apartment roughly a month later. The robbery took place in 1997.

## References

1. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xviii (2000).
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xii (2000).
3. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xiv (2000).
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xi (2000).
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xv (2000).
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxi (2000).
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxi-xxii (2000).
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xxii (2000).
9. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xx-xxi (2000).
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xvii (2000).
11. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xix (2000).
12. ↑ According to Johnny Truant. *See* "Introduction" in House of Leaves xix (2000).
13. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xiii-xiv (2000).
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xiii (2000).
15. ↑ Minotaur (Mythical Character)
16. ↑ Johnny Truant, "Introduction" in House of Leaves xviii (2000) (emphasis added).
17. ↑ Milly Graham and Cindy S. Finch, "Who was Zampano?", 66 *Lodestone* 55, 55-89 (2007).
18. ↑ No. CAL384-13E385F09, 2009 WL 23489219 \*2-19 (Dec. 21, 2009).