Author: Linda Lo Scuro

Publisher: Sparkling Books

ISBN: 978-1-907230-69-1

When I finished reading this book, my first reaction was that I had just finished  reading a memoir. Then I saw the declaration statement about this book being a work of fiction. The kind  of authenticity that this work invokes is staggering.

Sicily is a very evocative word. It is synonymous with passion, of inflicting pain for the purpose of justice at any cost. The peasants, whole families of them, even the children, had to work all day in the blazing sun and yet were unable to feed themselves or their families properly. The landowners, from whom the peasants rented their land, paid thugs to keep the peasants from revolting, to punish those workers who dared to complain..But workers also sought to rise above their station and either cooperated with their very exploiters, or organized groups among themselves to threaten their own. In these conditions, the only resort  for justice was to take it in your own hands instead of waiting for heaven to intervene and do the needful. This is how the mafia come into being. 

The story is told in the first person..Maria is a middle aged woman, born of Sicilian parents and happily married to an English bank officer whom she has two daughters who have both left home when the story begins.

Maria has tried to keep her Sicilian past and British present, separate  This she has done by severing her links with most of her Sicilian relatives, who are, in turn, not very interested in pursuing their ties with her. All of them,, including her parents, did not want to have much to do with her. The only exceptions were her mother.s sister, Zia and her cousin Susi, with whom she shared a pleasant rapport.

Maria’s family roots in the mafia were deep and enduring. Her maternal grandmother’s sister always carried a gun in her pocket. Both she and her husband were gunned down in separate incidents by unidentified gunmen. Several other encounters had taken place in the families’ history, and those circumstances impelled her to create a new identity, involving a distance from her Sicilian relatives and an adoption of British mores and values.

However, when a neighbour with a prejudice against foreigners denigrates her cycle in the common cycle shed, her Sicilian instincts are aroused. She goes to her aunt Zia, with whom she had a relatively close relationship and asks for help in rightening the wrong done to her. In doing so, she gets involved in similar situations where others who have suffered perceived wrongs get recourse to justice by a well chosen reference to the mafia. Many women come to see Zia and Maria helps her aunt in her attempts to ensure justice for the wronged, essentially forming some sort of a female mafia network.

Maria’s family wants contact with her Sicilian connections and they take the opportunity to follow her on a birthday celebration in  Sicily. Once there, Maria runs into a close friend from the past and finds out that she was married to her mafia cousin.

The story continues with Maria getting to see that there was another side to the mafia that had not registered in her mind.  That bonds of friendship forged earlier in life could also be channelled into creative, positive pursuits. Besides, circumstances conspire to show that the so desirable British mindset embodied by her husband, had its Achilles heel as well. The mafiosi could also have its bright side, especially when it came to joint ventures.

This book is a fast  and easy read and is very informative and evocative as well. One gets a very clear-cut picture of a piece of history, one that is dying out under the pressure of globalization. Personally, I enjoyed it very much.

Warmly reconnected.