Midnight in Sicily: on Art, Food, History, Travel and La Cosa Nostra

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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.

Midnight in Sicily: on Art, Food, History, Travel and La Cosa

It is sometimes complicated, as each and every person demands 100% of your attention and it is hard to catch up but it is a brilliant picture of the Mezzogiorno region. It was a bit rough to be disregarded, but if they had taken the time to read my submission, they would have realised my work is something utterly different to Peter Robb’s. His La Vucciria is not only considered the image of Palermo and its most famous market, but also Sicily and its way of life in general. That being said, it cannot be doubted that the detailed narrative shines a very illuminating light on a host of figures who deserve opprobrium.

The train ride along the coast from the seaside city of Capo d’Orlando is comfortable, and with my window seat, I see many other places I’d like to visit in Sicily. There are endless beachside villas, fishing boats and ruins left behind from long-departed Greek and Roman tourists. In fact one of her photographs, casually taken as an ordinary newspaper photographer in 1979 when covering Prime Minister Andreotti’s very public visit to Palermo, became a central part of Andreotti’s trial 16 years later. There are two or three very intriguing pages about the history and culture of Neapolitan coffee (the best in the world) and then a few on the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra.

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It must also be said that the author tends to get worryingly close to expressing some form of respect towards this phenomenon – almost justifying it in the light of the history of poverty, oppression and foreign domination that feature in so much of the history of Southern Italy, and Sicily in particular. I really enjoyed the travelogue components that included history, culture and the food of Naples and Sicily, along with the interviews and descriptions with some significant spectators to the unfolding events. Yet there are parts of Italy and aspects of its society that are as exotic and unfamiliar as if they came from the Middle or Far East.What made this book special for me is that he is passionate about the place and understands and loves his subject, and lived there for long enough to know it really well.

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The other is Christ Stopped At Eboli) I am going to read it again, as some of the detail is fading from memory.The book may have even been more successful at getting across the huge amount of information delivered on the Cosa Nostra had these little distractions not been included. At least then Robb and I could have parted ways on a sweet, rather than a bitter, note - much like a Neapolitan Caffè. Instead what we're left with is an account of political thugs like Giulio Andreotti (Italy's former Prime Minister) and then 5 pages on children visiting a museum in Palermo and being told by their guide of the beauty of a particular sculpture's buttocks.

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For me, this was not an unwelcome angle given I have prior historical interest in the topic and given the era in which Robb lived in Palermo it is certainly justified. We visited Sicily and like many readers I bought this book thinking it would be an overview of the culture of Sicily.When visiting my husbands relatives in Sicily, I found the undercurrents there present - men with rifles nd wolf-dogs standing in country lanes at dusk, protecting their orange trees, for example. Perhaps that’s all the recommendation needed because if this book was good enough to explain a part of Italy to an Italian then what higher praise is there than that.