Behind Closed Doors : Her Father's House and Other Stories of Sicily

Ten stories of impoverished Sicilian women in the early 20th century—"honed, polished, devastatingly direct . . . verismo at its unsentimental best" ( Kirkus Reviews ). The Sicilian writer Maria Messina's captivating and brutal stories of the women of her home island are presented in a "lyrical and immediate" English translation by Elise Magistro ( Publishers Weekly ). Messina, who died in 1944, was the foremost female practitioner of verismo—the Italian literary realism pioneered by fellow Sicilian Giovanni Verga. Published between 1908 and 1928, Messina's fiction represents the massive Sicilian immigration to America occurring at that time. The individuals in these stories are caught between the traditions they respect and a desire to move beyond them. Women are shuttered in their houses, virtual servants to their families, left behind while working men immigrate to the United States in fortune-seeking droves. A cultural album that captures the lives of peasant, working-class, and middle-class women, "Messina's words will leave their mark. Their power makes them impossible to forget" ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ) .

With an ear for dialogue that may be compared to Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, and Ernest Hemingway, Sicilian writer Maria Messina presents the captivating and brutal realities of women living in early-twentieth-century Italy in this first collection of her work available in English.

Behind Closed Doors portrays the habits and gestures, the words spoken and those left unsaid, of individuals caught between the traditions they respect and a desire to ease the social restrictions in their lives. Messina’s stories reveal a world in which women are shuttered in their houses, virtual servants to their families, and working men immigrate to the United States in fortune-seeking droves. It is also a world of unstated privileges in which habits and implied commands perpetuate women’s servitude.

A cultural album that captures the lives of peasant, working-class, and middle-class women, this volume will appeal to millions of Italian descendants and readers everywhere fascinated by Italian history.

Maria Messina (1887–1944) wrote short stories, children’s tales, and novels about her native Sicily until she died of multiple sclerosis. In recent years, her work has been rediscovered in Italy, where she has been compared to Luigi Pirandello and Giovanni Verga.

Fred Gardaphe is the director of Italian American Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the president of MELUS (The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US).

Elise Magistro holds a doctorate in Italian from UCLA and is a lecturer in Italian at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Stories of Sicily, immigration, and the lives of Sicilian women in the early 20th century.

Publishers Weekly

More than 60 years after her death, Sicilian realist Messina (1887-1944) gets her first English translation, 10 stories published between 1909 and 1928 that focus on the downtrodden, poor and middle-class women of her native island. Two stories, "America 1911" and "America 1918," explore immigration and emigration from expectant departure to unsettling return, while "Grandmother Lidda" takes the intimate perspective of an elderly mother left behind. In "Her Father's House," Vanna returns seeking refuge from her woeful marriage to a Rome lawyer, only to find she has lost her place in her family. Meanwhile, the deaf mute protagonist of "Ciancianedda" struggles to communicate with her new husband. Messina's raw and psychologically deft tales render these women's lives with pathos and dignity, and Magistro's lucid translation is at once lyrical and immediate. Absorbing and culturally rich, these stories should help secure Messina's place in Italian letters. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Grace (grazia) -- America 1911 (la Mèrica) -- Dainty Shoes (le Scarpette) -- Grandmother Lidda (nonna Lidda) -- America 1918 (la Mèrica) -- I Take You Out (ti-nesciu) -- Her Father's House (casa Paterna) -- Ciancianedda -- Red Roses (rose Rosse) -- Caterina's Loom (il Telaio Di Caterina). By Maria Messina ; Translated From The Italian And With An Introduction And Afterword By Elise Magistro ; Preface By Fred Gardaphé. Includes Bibliographical References.