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Chapters (17)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Preface
  4. Introduction
  5. Grace
  6. America 1911
  7. Dainty Shoes
  8. Grandmother Lidda
  9. America 1918
  10. I Take You Out
  11. Her Father’s House
  12. Ciancianedda
  13. Red Roses
  14. Caterina’s Loom
  15. Glossary
  16. Afterword
  17. Translator’s Acknowledgments

Mancuso, Elvira. 1906. Annuzza la maestrina. (Vecchia storia… inverosimile). Caltanissetta: Tipografia dell’Omnibus. Rpt. 1990. Vecchia storia … inverosimile. Palermo: Sellerio.

Messina, Maria. 1997. Piccoli gorghi. Palermo: Sandron, 1911. Reprint. Palermo: Sellerio.

Navarro della Miraglia, Emanuele. 1885. Storielle siciliane. Catania: Gianotta. Rpt. 1974. Palermo: Sellerio

Nigro, Salvatore. 1990. “Una volpicina tra i villani.” In Vecchia storia…inverosimile. Palermo: Sellerio.

Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, Direzione Generale della Statistica. “Censimento della popolazione del regno al 10 febbraio, 1901.” II, 1903. Rome.

Reeder, Linda. “Women in the Classroom: Mass Migration, Literacy and the Nationalization of Sicilian Women at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Social History, 32, (Fall 1998): 101–23.

Salomone-Marino, Salvatore. 1981. Customs and Habits of the Sicilian Peasants. Translated by Rosalie N. Norris. London: Associated University Presses.

Schneider, Jane, and Peter T. Schneider. 1996. Festival of the Poor: Fertility Decline and the Ideology of Class in Sicily, 1860–1980. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Grace

Grace

Image

Grazia

The women were out enjoying the sun. Gna’ Basila, who was crossing red and turquoise sock yarns, and Elena la Mottese, hands folded behind her neck, had their kerchiefs pulled low over their eyes to shield them from the light. They were sitting on an old log propped against the wall that had been there for who knows how many years, worn smooth by water and dried by the sun. Grace, her head uncovered, was sitting a little further off on her doorstep, carefully mending a worn-out shirt. She didn’t dare put a kerchief on for fear the neighbor women would make fun of her. She’d already gotten so much sun washing at Buscardo that by now her face and neck, naturally thin and dark, were just like the old log, eroded by water and dried out by the sun.

“You just get drowsy and feel like sleeping in this heat!” said gna’ Basila, scratching her head with the tip of her knitting needle.

“It’s no weather to be working in …” replied Elena,yawning. She picked up the piece of mirror she had brought along with a comb, removed her kerchief, and began to slowly undo her long, thick, chestnut braids, looking at herself in the mirror that she now held tightly between her knees. Once the braids were undone, she shook them loose and began to comb her beautiful hair—slowly—dividing it into two sections, bending her head to the side with every stroke of the comb. And her hair, so smooth and shiny, shimmered in the sun like gold. Grace mended the shirt without saying a word, stealing glances at Elena whenever she threaded her needle.

“Is everything in your life as good as it looks in that mirror?” asked gna’ Basila.