The lives of Angelo Cavallaro and Angela Gravagna are entwined in a backdrop set in the coastal areas of the Province of Catania, Sicily, and moves onto the northern hillsides of the active volcano, Mount Etna. They are traced from their early childhoods, where they lived as peasants during the reconstruction of Italy and Sicily, through their immigration to America. The journey of Angelo, Angela, and their six children begins in the tiny village of Passopisciaro and continues as they travel to Palermo in1913 to board a ship and sail across the Atlantic Ocean. You share and experience their fears as they pass through Ellis Island, and their joys of eventually arriving to their new home in Rochester, New York. In this sensitive memoir, the author attempts to do what most Italians only dream of - to piece together all the stories parents have retold their children over the generations; from their struggles and humble beginnings, to the joys they shared with their extended families in later years. In chapters that examine individual members of his family and highlights their life achievements, the reader gains a better understanding of the unique characteristics that all immigrants have in common. The memories recorded are a tribute to the legacy they left; lessons about life, responsibility, self-respect, and love of family. It is written with gratitude to all immigrants; our ancestral grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles. These were the risk-takers and pioneers, who were willing to sacrifice personal comfort in order to provide a better life for their families in an unknown world. A narrative that honors our link to the past through the memories they left behind, My Sicilian Legacy is a chronicle focusing on the importance of family life and the pride in maintaining ethnic roots. It is a description of how the ordinary events that shape and mold character, thinking, aspirations, and joys can be achieved through hard work and perseverance - the early immigrants gave of themselves so their children would attain a better lifestyle. Richard Cavallaro traces his own ancestral history to this area of Sicily and paints a vivid picture of the events that occurred through three generations, which eventually led to the creation of My Sicilian Legacy; a tribute that many Italians and Sicilians will share with pride.

Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree. Her grandmother Josie had emigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's nine siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans. But Josie had a sister nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia---a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber, and when she returned home a married woman, her fate was sealed. Even eighty years and two generations later, Frances was not spoken of, and her memory was suppressed. Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn-of-the-century Detroit. Tracing the history and insular world of Italian immigrants back to the old country, Karen Tintori shows what they came from, what they hoped for, and how the hopes and dreams of America fell far short for her great-aunt Frances. "Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price -- ostracism or worse at the time, and obliteration from the memory of succeeding generations. Few of these transgressors paid a higher price than Frances Costa, who was brutally murdered by her own brothers in a 1919 Sicilian honor killing in Detroit. And fewer yet have had a more tenacious successor than Frances's great-niece, Karen Tintori, who refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the convinction that all history, in the end, is family history." -Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century "Switching back and forth between rural Sicily and early 20th century Detroit, Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone. In exploring her own family's secret history, Karen Tintori gives voice not just to her victimized aunt but to all Italian-American daughters and wives silenced by the power of omerta. Half gripping true-crime story, half moving family memoir, Unto the Daughters is both fascinating and frightening, packed with telling details and obscure folklore that help bring the suffocating world of a Mafia family to life." --Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

Can the eclectic medieval history of the world's most conquered island be a lesson for our times? Home to Normans, Byzantines, Arabs, Germans and Jews, 12th-century Sicily was a crossroads of cultures and faiths, the epitome of diversity. Here Europe, Asia and Africa met, with magical results. Bilingualism was the norm, women's rights were defended, and the environment was protected. Literacy among Sicilians soared; it was higher during this ephemeral golden age than it was seven centuries later. But this book is about more than Sicily. It is a singular, enduring lesson in the way multicultural diversity can be encouraged, with the result being a prosperous society. While its focus is the civilizations that flourished during the island's multicultural medieval period from 1060 to 1260, most of Sicily's complex history to the end of the Middle Ages is outlined. Idrisi is mentioned, but so is Archimedes. Introductory background chapters begin in the Neolithic, continuing to the history of the contested island under Punics and Greeks. Every civilization that populated the island is covered, including Romans, Goths, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, Angevins, Aragonese and Jews, with profiles of important historical figures and sites. Religion, law, geography and cuisine are also considered. The authors' narrative is interesting but never pedantic, intended for the general reader rather than the expert in anthropology, theology, art or architecture. They are not obsessed with arcane terminology, and they don't advocate a specific agenda or world view. Here two erudite scholars take their case to the people. Yes, this book actually sets forth the entirety of ancient and medieval Sicilian history from the earliest times until around 1500, and it presents a few nuggets of the authors' groundbreaking research in medieval manuscripts. Unlike most authors who write in English about Sicily, perhaps visiting the island for brief research trips, these two are actually based in Sicily, where their work appears on a popular website. Sicily aficionados will be familiar with their writings, which have been read by some ten million during the last five years, far eclipsing the readership of any other historians who write about Sicily. Alio and Mendola are the undisputed, international "rock stars" of Sicilian historical writing, with their own devoted fan base. Every minute of the day somebody is reading their online articles. This is a great book for anybody who is meeting Sicily for the first time, the most significant 'general' history of the island published in fifty years and certainly one of the most eloquent. It has a detailed chronology, a useful reading list, and a brief guide suggesting places to visit. The book's structure facilitates its use as a ready reference. It would have run to around 600 pages, instead of 368 (on archival-quality, acid-free paper), were it not for the slightly smaller print of the appendices, where the chronology, the longest Sicilian timeline ever published, is 20 pages long. Unlike most histories of Sicily, the approach to this one is multifaceted and multidisciplinary. In what may be a milestone in Sicilian historiography, a section dedicated to population genetics explains how Sicily's historic diversity is reflected in its plethora of haplogroups. Here medieval Sicily is viewed as an example of a tolerant, multicultural society and perhaps even a model. It is an unusually inspiring message. One reader was moved to tears as she read the preface. Can a book change our view of cultures and perhaps even the way we look at history? This one just might. Meet the peoples!

Although in recent years maternity has become a contested site of political discourse, the matrophobia that characterizes many mother-daughter bonds has hardly been theorized. This book defines matrophobia as fear of mothers, as fear of becoming a mother, and as fear of identification with and separation from the maternal body. Deborah D. Rogers argues that matrophobia is the central metaphor for women's relationships with each other within a patriarchal culture. Analyzing different contexts in which matrophobia problematizes feminism, this book begins with matrophobic discourse in eighteenth-century England. Significantly, the self-sacrificing construction of motherhood emerges at the same time as the novel, a genre that develops as a locus for the radical displacement of matrophobia. Coining the term «Matrophobic Gothic» to describe works in which inadequately mothered heroines reconcile with maternal figures that the narrative has repressed, Rogers focuses on this phenomenon in the works of Ann Radcliffe and Jane Austen. Her consideration of matrophobia extends to early modern male-authored texts, including Samuel Richardson's representation of maternity and Sir Walter Scott's exploration of gender roles and identity. These issues continue unabated in televised serial drama. All told, this book powerfully argues for the necessity of confronting the matrophobia at the heart of feminism.

When career-girl Veronica flies to Sicily for a friend's wedding, she accidentally falls in love with one of the groom's three-hundred cousins. A year later she has given up her job, house and friends, and is planning her own wedding with her Latin Lover in the shimmering heat of Sicily.