Midnight in SicilyAuthor: Robb, PeterGenre: True Crime Publisher: Vintage Released: 1999 |
A Review by Stephen Murray
08/13/2002
Although Sicilian realities do not look like a spider web, pretty much every strand Robb follows leads to the Cosa Nostra (Mafia is not a Sicilian term, but then the very existence of organized crime in Sicily was denied with seeming seriousness in Sicily even during the street warfare of the 1980s). At the center of the web are the brutal capo of the Sicilian mob, Salvatore Riina, and Senator/Minister Andreotti. Andreotti is even personally involved in the disappearance of Guttuso's work and the mysterious adoption by the dying artist to whom access by his longtime friends and even longer-term mistress was blocked. Also involved in this and much other corruption is the Holy Mother Church; the atheist/communist/sensualist painter allegedly made a deathbed embrace of the Church.
The two spiders inherited more than they wove. Indeed, so excessive was their arrogance that they brought outraged outside consideration (not just Robb's but the more consequential investigations of three heroic magistrates all of whom were blatantly murdered in Sicily) and destroyed much of the cover under which the unholy alliance of the Christian Democratic Party, the Cosa Nostra, and the Catholic Church had operated in Sicily (in particular, but also on the mainland of Italy...and beyond).
Robb has serious criticisms of the public stances and effects of Sciascia and Guttuso, but there are also genuine heroes in his exceedingly dark narrative—specifically, the martyred magistrates Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, carabinieri General Carlo Dalla Chiesa, anti-corruption crusading Palermo mayor (now Italian Minister of the Interior) Leoluca Orlando, and the Countess Marzotto (Gussoto's mistress, muse, and recurrent subject). The book also includes a fascinating interpretation of the kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1978, after Andreotti and other Christian Democrats decided not to negotiate with terrorists.
Since the publication of Midnight in Sicily in 1996, Andreotti was acquitted. His tactic of denying everything, no matter how absurd the denials in the face of concrete evidence, worked (again). Although a spider with more lives than the proverbial cat, Andreotti is at least discredited now, even if still not imprisoned.
One of the disappointments of the book is the lack of an epilogue on the trial, the beginnings of which Robb observed, and whether or not the power of the beast has waned since the “maxi-trial” and jailing of high-level mafioso, including Riina (who police had been unable to find, between 1969 and 1993, although he was clearly visibly living in his Palermo mansion). If the murders of the magistrates was midnight—and a very dark time it certainly was—I would be interested to know whether Robb thinks that it is still night-time in Sicily.
The way the book keeps returning to Andreotti and Riina and the proliferation of names of less prominent Mafiosi and officials (not that these are distinct sets!) makes it difficult to follow and demands a high level of commitment by readers to keeping the pieces straight—even though the pieces of the puzzle are anything but clear and straightforward. The difficulty of following the narrative is further complicated by long discourses on Naples. (Naples is another cesspool of corruption and one that, like Palermo, had its center depopulated to move the population into concrete apartment buildings on the peripheries. Naples was also the capital of the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. However, Robb fails to connect the organized crime syndicates in Naples and Palermo except insofar as both are parts of the nation of Italy that is deeply compromised by Andreotti and his allies.)
Although Midnight in Sicily has a partial list of characters, it desperately needs an index so that readers can refresh their memory of who's who. Since he is writing about extremely murky realities, the plotline cannot be completely clear, but a more straightforward exposition is imaginable.
There is a great deal of information—not just on political/criminal collaboration, but on other aspects of Sicily—in this book. I can't recommend that someone who is going to Sicily read it in advance of a visit, but it makes for fascinating reading after leaving the island that Lampedusa considered eternally exploited and misgoverned. Robb shares the despairing love for Sicily and its people of Lampedusa (and Sciascia).
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 08/13/2002
