On Persephone's Island

A Sicilian Journal

Plot

The scent of oranges and almonds. The luxurious sheen of fresh-pressed olive oil. The intoxicating sweetness of a cake called "The Triumph of Greed". Criminals who gun down entire convoys of police. Religious festivals at which celebrants tidy up their family tombs and make archangels dance in the village piazza. Tales like these, along with all the myriad sights, flavors, and fragrances of Sicily, burst from the pages of this gem of contemporary travel writing. When Mary Taylor Simeti first came to Sicily, she intended to make just a short visit. Instead, she stayed for over twenty years. With both a native's intimacy and the fresh eye of an outsider, she chronicles a year in the place she calls Persephone's Island, after the goddess who once made Sicily her home. Simeti navigates through Sicily's history of Greek, Arab, Norman, and Spanish conquests. She savors the fruits of its harvests. She introduces us to a neighbor who "borrows" a tree for Christmas and returns it along with a homemade cheese. At once poetic and precise, learned and deeply personal, "On Persephone's Island" is an absorbing account of a woman's love affair with a place that beckons us with sounds, tastes, colors, and myth.