Midnight in Sicily: On Art, Food, History, Travel and la Cosa Nostra - Softcover

Robb, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312426844 ISBN 13: 9780312426842

Publisher: Picador, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Robb has divided his time among Brazil, southern Italy, and Australia for the last quarter century. He is the author of A Death in Brazil and M: The Man Who became Caravaggio, which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year.

From Kirkus Reviews:

If it's true, as the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia once said, that Sicily is a metaphor for the modern world, then author Robb has plumbed the depths of the world. Midnight in Sicily is a work from another age and era. Perhaps only in the 18th and 19th centuries would a foreigner have attempted to write about art, food, history, travel, and the Mafia together. But it soon becomes apparent that in the hands of Robb the landscape of Sicily becomes a metaphor for its history; history is inextricably tied to food; food is inseparable from art. Again, it takes a foreigner to see Italy and Sicily in clearer terms than the Sicilians and Italians themselves. The heart of darkness in this tale is Giulio Andreotti, the most powerful politician in postwar Italy: seven-time prime minister and once hailed as the greatest political mind since Bismarck. Ironically, Andreotti is a Roman who sold his soul in Sicily in a Faustian bargain to secure a political power base from which to rule Italy practically undisturbed for decades. Robb, who has written for the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, masterfully recreates scenes as benevolent as friends enjoying a meal or as diabolical as Andreotti's meeting with the most brutal crime boss in all of Italy. There are shrewd insights (``Beyond a certain threshold, power erases embarrassment''); telling phrases (Andreotti, leader of the Christian Democrats, is called a ``sacristy rat''); and deep political/historical revelations (such as Cosa Nostra's permanent aim of eliminating the historic memory built up by those few who've understood that Cosa Nostra was a state within a state). A barbecue becomes an occasion for a learned excursus on the history of the fork. This narrative is itself an eclectic and sumptuous meal that- -through no fault of the author's--leaves the diner with a bitter taste in the mouth. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312426844
• ISBN 13: 9780312426842
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480