Novel set in Sicily – plus location piece by the author, Penny Feeny

7th August 2018

Secrets in Sicily by Penny Feeny, novel set in Sicily.

In 1968 there was a substantial earthquake in Belice, Sicily. It took an inordinate amount of time to rehouse the survivors, many were given passports to leave the area and relocate. The novel is set in fictional Roccamare, but fifty years on the ruined houses of actual Santa Margherita can still be seen, next to the new town that has risen from the ashes. Below, the author expands on the story and background.

It is in the aftermath of this dreadful event that the author sets her novel Secrets in Sicily. Jess and Alex McKenzie are frequent visitors to Villa Ercole run by Gerald and Dolly. Blissful and idyllic holidays make for fond memories and their daughter Lily has vividly captured scenes from her childhood. There is a reason they return to this part of Sicily every Summer.

One Summer, when Lily is a little older, the family is approached by Carlotta Galetti, it seems an innocuous enough encounter but gradually it becomes apparent that she is making herself known to the family for good reason. Her story feeds into the family life which the McKenzies have built up and her presence is sufficiently strong to undermine the couple relationship as things unfold.

The essence of the story is about kinship and provenance and how “it’s normal human need to know where you’ve come from“. Who is Carlotta and what does she want from the McKenzie family? It is Lily who has to make the “..quixotic leap into the unknown..” Secrets abound in every nook and cranny in this neatly woven story.

The important strands of the narrative dovetail together well and the author is extremely adept at bringing the feel of Sicily (and of Rome, although this is only a small part of the story) to her readers. There are peaches and tomatoes and lemons that overwhelm the visual and olfactory senses. There are vistas of sea, Palermo makes a guest appearance in all its arid, almost hostile construction, and the countryside, as the characters criss-cross the island, is redolent with the feel of hot Summer.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Over to Penny in our latest #TalkingLocationWith… feature, sharing her love of Sicily and how she was inspired by the The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (reviewed for us on this link by Rebecca for the TripFiction Team)

Sicily captivated me from my very first visit and I’ve always wanted to set a novel there, but it wasn’t until a recent trip that a story began to take shape. Although the eastern side of the island offers splendid attractions – baroque beauties such as Noto and Ragusa; the magnificent Greek city of Siracusa; Taormina, the jewel in the crown; and Etna, a brooding presence – my chosen location is in the region known as ‘the wild west’. This is less visited by tourists and less developed, a reflection of the Mafia presence here, further from the mainland authorities. Things are improving now, but corruption used to be endemic.

The Mafia are skilled at appropriating public money and one of the most notorious examples took place after the earthquake which devastated the Val de Belice in 1968. The government issued passports and train tickets to encourage survivors to leave the area, but the funding intended for rehousing never reached those who stayed: they lived under canvas for a decade. I travelled to one of the towns affected, Santa Margherita, because I was following the footsteps of Giuseppe di Lampedusa, author of the classic historical novel, The Leopard. We had stayed in his palace in Palermo, where you can rent a grand apartment, with a breath-taking view of both sea and the mountains, for less than the price of a hotel room. (And wherever you go in the city you will eat like royalty.)

Lampedusa’s home in Palermo was partially destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943 and it’s taken until now for restoration to be completed – such is the pace of progress in Sicily! But his family’s country residence, immortalised in The Leopard as the palace of Donnafugata, with its 100 rooms, collapsed in the Belice earthquake. Actually, the façade remains, fronting the piazza like a surreal stage set. The town was eventually rebuilt, but the ruined houses have been left just as they were fifty years ago when the earth cracked and people fled for their lives. The atmosphere in these empty crumbling streets is incredibly powerful and compelling. I knew there had to be a story here.

Santa Margherita lies about an hour inland from the coast and most of Secrets in Sicily is set in the seaside resort of Roccamare. Roccamare itself is fictional, though it’s partly based on a tiny fishing village called Marinella, which has a pretty beach and is a handy staging post for the archaeological site of Selinunte. This is unmissable. The ancient Greek colony was ravaged by the Carthaginians around 400BC and subsequently abandoned. The position of the temple on the headland is beyond magnificent and the remains of the city are so extensive they are still being excavated. A ticket also includes entry to the nearby Cave di Cusa – though this is never actually manned, so anyone can wander in. It’s a limestone quarry where slaves chiselled out the great Doric columns for Selinunte’s temples. When the fleet from Carthage appeared on the horizon, they downed their tools and ran, leaving sections of carved stone scattered about, uncompleted. Over 2000 years later, although cultivated olive groves run along the boundary, the quarry itself is frozen in time, and offers another extraordinarily moving experience.

The main characters in Secrets in Sicily are Lily and Carlotta, both victims of the earthquake, and British couple, Jess and Alex, who try, not always successfully, to do the right thing. Alex’s friend, Toby, who introduces him to Sicily, is working on the excavations at Mozia. This is a small but fascinating island between Trapani and Marsala. It’s a short ferry ride away, navigating the shallow channels between the salt pans. Here you will see windmills that could have stepped from a Dutch painting, interspersed with tall cones of salt, pure white and glittering in the sun. There is also a causeway built by the Phoenicians, wide enough to take a horse and cart. Today this is a few inches below the surface of the sea, which produces the bizarre spectacle (enchanting ten year old Lily) of people appearing to walk on water.

In Sicily there are ruins wherever you go, from majestic classical sites to farm cottages abandoned because the crops failed. And perhaps I am particularly susceptible to the poignancy they evoke. But a visit here encompasses more than cultural heritage in a beautiful landscape. The island has been invaded and colonised so many times – after the Greeks came the Romans, the Arabs, the Normans and the Spaniards, and migrants continue to arrive today – that it is a true melting pot. This may be why the Sicilians are so welcoming, among the friendliest people you could meet; their hospitality will make any trip memorable.

Thank you to Penny for such a wonderful insight into the island! You can find all of Penny’s book set in Italy on this link for a bit of literary wanderlust!

Do come and join team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction)

For more books to transport you to Sicily, just access the TripFiction database!

Subscribe to future blog posts