THE STONE BOUDOIR:
TRAVELS THROUGH THE HIDDEN VILLAGES OF SICILY
By Theresa Maggio
244 pp. Cambridge:
Perseus Publishing. $25

Reviewed by Jean R. Webster

I love the opening of Theresa Maggio’s preface to her book The Stone Boudoir: Travels Through the Hidden Villages of Sicily: “Something thrums in the stones of Sicilian hill towns, and I have become obsessed with them.” I fell upon this line because I too have become obsessed with stones, although my stones are in the United States, not in Sicily, and they don’t contain the songs of my ancestors.

The other reason is that, like Maggio, my father’s family came from Sicily. Her paternal grandparents came from Santa Margherita, a small town in the mountains of Sicily. Mine emigrated from a small town near Messina. Therefore, in a way, the quest for her origins became mine as well.

Growing up, my sisters and I jokingly referred to ourselves as half-Italian and half-Sicilian. Some years before my father’s parents moved from Sicily to the New York area, my mother’s family had left Bari, which is on Italy’s Adriatic coast. They also landed at Ellis Island and stayed. Eventually, both families moved to Brooklyn, where my parents met, married and settled down.

From the time she was a little girl, Theresa Maggio had heard about the village of Santa Margherita from her Nana and Papa, her grandparents. The love for her heritage came from these two people, who’d brought the old customs to their new home in the Meadowlands of New Jersey. She loved Sundays, the day set aside for family, when aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives gathered around Nana and Papa’s table for good food, wine and lots of talk, just as the family had in Sicily.

But in 1968, an earthquake destroyed their hometown and many others, and Nana stopped talking about her village. When Maggio asked why, her grandmother said,  “Because there’s nothing there.” The earthquake had taken everything.

In spite of what her Nana said (or because of it) Maggio begins her journey by seeking the place where Nana and Papa had started their life. And, with the generous help of total strangers, she finds what’s left of the village of Santa Margherita and soon afterward her Zia (Aunt) Betta, cousin Carmela and Carmela’s husband, Calogero. She is welcomed like a beloved family member who has just returned from a journey.

So much of what she found is familiar to me. The superstitions, like the stone amulet to wear around your neck to guard against another’s jealousy. The fact that a look is a powerful thing in a place “where people believe in the Evil Eye and love is declared with a furtive look in church.” (A bad headache when I was seventeen was attributed by a friend’s mother to the fact that someone had “overlooked” me.)

I could appreciate the thriftiness of one of Maggio’s ancient relatives, who reused her paper napkin throughout the day. My father always folded and carried his napkin in his breast pocket, and used it for his little snacks and—sometimes—later meals. And the meal of tomato sauce with an egg broken into it that she writes about was a favorite treat in my house.

On one page I learned that the outbursts that took place in our house on a regular basis actually have a name. In Italy, this is called “prendere cinque,” meaning “take five,” an old Italian custom that means everyone can take five minutes a day to blow off steam.

Maggio’s writing is so vivid; it is obvious that she drew warmth from the people she met and the events of their days. Her writing offers the reader a day-by-day view of life in the mountain towns of Sicily. We learn that she not only played the part of observer, but was also an active participant in the life of the places she visited.

She writes about the people she meets as she journeys from village to village—people who take her in, include her in their daily lives, and even drive her to the next destination. In the homes she visits, Maggio is always treated as a guest, even by her own relatives. She’d often find herself eating alone at the dining room table, a table covered in a crisp white tablecloth, while the woman of the house fussed in the kitchen. Even the cousin she stayed with for some time would not join her at table, choosing to serve her instead.

She truly comes to love these Sicilians, and it appears that her sojourn is a long extension of the Sundays she spent at her Nana’s and Papa’s table in the Meadowlands. Like the ones in Sicily, that table is covered with a starched, white cloth, and people sit and eat for hours at a time, enjoying food fresh from the sea and the soil, enjoying each other.

Food, of course, is an oft-told story in Sicily, as it is in Italy. Maggio takes us from the stalls at the marketplace with its many-colored fruits and vegetables, to a kitchen where sometimes a new friend would let her help prepare a meal. We join her around other dining room tables, and in the cozy cafes and restaurants she finds in every village and town.

In her travels, Maggio views life from many sides: as a woman (particularly a woman alone); as a Sicilian-American; and as a reporter. At times, she becomes so involved in the local village difficulties that her reporter’s instinct compels her to publicize their problems in the local papers. But, people in town discourage her from doing this. The reason appears to be a kind of national fatalism, which recognizes that these old problems are no longer worthy of reporting. And perhaps the thought that it would do no good if they were. (The Mafia is still alive and well there.)


A keen observer, Maggio recognizes how differently women still live in that part of the world. One of her relatives—a generous hostess to Maggio—had chosen to live alone, unmarried, even after the aunt whom she took care of had died. Although unmarried women in Sicily still hold a lower place in society, this cousin preferred living alone, rather than be at the beck and call of a man, she said.

In spite of her independence, the cousin (who is probably in her fifties at the time) will never leave her house wearing trousers. In fact, the only trousers she owns are a pair of pajama bottoms, which she wears under her skirt in the house on chilly mornings.

From the time she arrives in Sicily, people frequently ask Maggio about her husband (she’s single) and children (she has none). Women she meets who have succeeded in business tell her that their success irks the Sicilian men. It is still traditional for women to be in the home, caring for husbands and children, while the men go to the cafés, and stand around the town square talking.

The chapter titled “Home Sweet Stone” fulfills the promise of the book’s title and preface. Maggio is invited to spend the night in “the ultimate stone house, a cave in Sperlinga, an ancient town... (located) in the center of Sicily.”

People have been living in these cave dwellings since the Bronze Age, but many of the modernized caves have electricity and what even we would consider the comforts of home. Some people only spend weekends in their caves, but Maggio describes some of her “diehard neighbors who still live fulltime in their caves.” One man said that after the earthquake of 1968, he moved into his cave fulltime. “The mountain won’t fall down around (my) ears,” he said.

In one of the richest chapters in the book, Maggio takes us along during the two-day procession to celebrate the life and martyrdom of Saint Agatha, the patron saint of the town of Catania. Agatha was martyred in the year 252 at the age of fifteen, and every February, five thousand men participate in an ancient ritual that is imitated in many old towns and cities throughout Europe, where they, too, honor their local saints in a similar way.

During a grueling forty-eight-hour trek, Saint Agatha’s relics are carried on a forty-thousand-pound silver carriage, which is drawn up and down the hilly streets of Catania in a nonstop procession. Maggio brings to life the drama of this procession, the devotion of the townspeople and the men who escort their beloved saint through the city. It is as though we are there, hearing the creak of the carriage, the groans of the men pulling a weight that is hundreds of years old. Regardless of what we believe, it is difficult not to be impressed by this ancient custom, relived for centuries.

For me, the chapter about Saint Agatha went beyond the stories about small villages, the people, the food, and the stones. It gave me a glimpse into the history of the island-country. In addition, Maggio includes at least one chapter of background and some history of Sicily.

In The Stone Boudoir, more than stones thrum with life. Maggio’s words sing and cry and laugh with the people she meets: her own relatives, who take her into their homes and their hearts; new and old friends who do not let her stay anywhere but with them; interesting characters she sees in the market places, in little churches and big cathedrals.

This is a book written with warmth and love, and written well. You don’t have to be Sicilian to enjoy it. As a travelogue, it fills in many of those gaps about unknown places away from the ever-popular coastal towns and cities. As a quest for your roots, it’s like a quick immersion course in Family 101: finding your past, and living with it for a short time. And, finally, it can simply be read as a good book about some interesting people.

 

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines