Home »
I would look for a second book with these characters
Book Review
By Derryll White
Edwards, Caterina (2015). The Sicilian Wife.
It is mainly by blood that we think,
For in blood all the elements are mingled.
— Empedocles
Caterina Edwards opens this novel with the above quote, and she immediately reminds me of Gioacchino Criaco’s 2008 novel ‘Black Souls.’ His story was also about the mountains of southern Italy and the black work rooted there. Like their Italian neighbours the rural Sicilians keep the old stories and rituals alive and functioning.
“I may be blind, but I see it black.” – attributed to a blind Sicilian man when Mussolini declared war on England.
Edwards plays with time and location in quite a wonderful way. She keeps the reader having to intuit where she is in the telling of Fulvia Arcuri’s life story – in Sicily, in Canada – where? But all is tinged with black. A reviewer called ‘The Sicilian Wife’ the “literary noir of the year” and that is not far off. Edwards tries very hard to reveal the Sicilian soul, using fairy tales, history mythology and recent political actions to illustrate the deep-rooted customs of the country. This is not Italy! The blood, terror and subjugation shine through.
“I was born into darkness. I had to fight to reach the light.” – Fulvia Arcuri
Caterina Edwards writes strongly of family, both its importance and the harsh difficulties it can contain. She remembers that we never get to choose our family. Fulvia embodies that strong sense of a pride of lions – the lioness protecting her young from all comers. There are some surprisingly touching and genuine pieces in ‘The Sicilian Wife’ that seem foreign to the mystery genre, but very appropriate to this novel.
If I were fire I would burn the world
If I were wind I would storm it
If I were water I would drown it — Cecco Angiolieri circa. 14th Century)
There are editing and proofreading mistakes in this novel that were bothersome. In the end, however, Caterina Edwards has written a novel strong enough that it could be serialized. I would certainly look for a second book featuring Fulvia Arcuri and Dottoressa Marisa De Luca.
Wives and cows should be from your hometown – Italian proverb.
Excerpts from the novel:
SICILY – “So we’ll go to the lake of Peguso, where Persephone was taken, and Erice, the city of Aphrodite. I also used to have a friend who was interested in the Great Mother and the early age of innocence. When the altars did not reek with bull’s blood. That’s also Empedocles.”
“I would like that… very much.”
“You need regular outings to withstand your work,” he said. “Because in the twentieth century Sicily, the streets do reek with blood.”
ETHNIC CANADA – John usually avoided such ethnic occasions: he was a resolutely non-hyphenated Canadian, scornful of a heritage represented by, and reduced to, pasta or spicy sausage, to children dancing the steps of folk dances that had no connection either to their own lives or those of any child in Italy.
CANADIAN – He had a casual manner, a Canadian manner, she decided, one moment serious, the next teasing. Polite and deferential, yet clearly amused by the expected courtesies.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
