Norman Lewis: In Sicily

In Sicily

By Norman Lewis

Random House $49.95

Reviewed by Barbara Harris

If you have ever wondered how the Mafia came to power, and stayed there, Norman Lewis is the man to read.
Sicily is dear to his heart. His association with the island and its people began when he married a Sicilian woman, and for more than 60 years he has been a frequent visitor.

During the Second World War he served in the Intelligence Corps in southern Italy, making several sorties to Palermo. But after the war he continued to holiday and work there.

Lewis' experiences and those of his friends - policemen, journalists and "men of respect" (Mafiosi) - gives a rare insight into a normally closed world.
This is a man who has been described by P.D. James as "one of the greatest writers of travel literature of the 20th century."

However, don't go expecting a travel guide, because the book is heavily weighted on the island's history. Lewis describes how for centuries the people lived in a feudal society from which the Mafia emerged.

Both powerbases were infested with corruption.

Just when the Mafia was being systematically weeded out - the Fascist dictator Mussolini had all suspected Mafiosi imprisoned - Il Duce was executed and the Mafiosi were freed.

This act was to have catastrophic effects. One of those released, an illiterate former farmer, Don Calo, effectively became godfather of this pernicious new order.

After the war the "men of respect" became more powerful. For instance, 130 Mafia murders occurred in the town of Favara in one year. Dying of natural causes was becoming rare.

America, too, began to feel the full impact of the Cosa Nostra (our affair).

For Lewis, Sicily seems more a vocation than work and in this slim hardback (it's only 166 pages) he manages to impart an extraordinary amount of knowledge revealing a people caught between the old ways, superstitions and the Mafia stranglehold.