HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS
In 1968 at the age of seven Francesco Scanella left his home in the UK and moved to the Sicilian mountain village of Mussomeli with his mother and two brothers. The word “shock” doesn’t do justice to the disorienting effect of being thrown into a culture he didn’t know but which he was forced to get to grips with almost immediately. This was a world where lying and fighting were obligatory and where the “right” kind of connections were a bonus.
Francesco was a fast learner and it wasn’t long before he was running his own gang. Yet two years later his father, who had stayed behind, ordered the family to return to England. Francesco was devastated. He spoke virtually no English and struggled to fit in at school, where his Italian heritage was openly derided by a racist teacher.
More than forty years later he is still living in the UK and by his own admission is “an avid tea drinker and fierce defender of imperial measures”. Yet despite his Englishness Francesco still has an Italian passport, calls himself Sicilian and is determined that his children will grow up learning to speak the language of their grandparents. So, why does a man who has spent most of his life living in Britain have more in common with the land of his parents? Sicilian Shadows, Scanella’s compellingly readable memoir, addresses the identity paradox through the backdrop of lost innocence, first love pangs, and the grittiness of the Sicilian character.
Sicilians are a people of the soil with a proud classical heritage, a love of grandiose storytelling and a culture that prizes family and honour. Friendship too is valued, although it is underscored by the notion that it’s better to give than to receive as the giver can always call in favours! There is much that doesn’t make sense to an outsider. Francesco is slapped around the head when he tries to clear away some candy wrappers he accidentally drops in the street. Only servants pick up rubbish, he is told in no uncertain terms, why are you dishonouring your family? When a man is killed at the barber shop everyone looks the other way as the assassin casually exits the crime scene. Violence is a fact of life when it comes to “protecting our own, keeping the status quo and business”, which explains why the Mafia was able to thrive. Although the Mob was everywhere people knew better than to openly discuss its activities. Would Francesco have joined them if he hadn’t returned to England? It’s an interesting question and one that even the author isn’t entirely sure how to answer, although his friend Salvatore did join after graduating from university.
Scannella is an extremely gifted writer with a sharp eye for detail and a wry sense of humour that compliments a clever turn of phrase. Sicily is and will always be in his DNA, along with lasting memories of a simple life untouched by the efficiencies of technology. Britain will never take that away! If I had to settle for a Scanella sentence that captures the quirkiness of what it is to be Sicilian, it would have to be this: “Stories were always the best way to get across the truth without compromising oneself in the telling.”
Reviewed by Juliette Foster
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