THE KING OF ITALY

A historical novel about Italian Americans in the 20th century.

Heckenlively introduces a Sicilian named Vincenzo Nicosia, who’s merely a boy when his father receives a 20-year sentence for beating up a jeweler in 1907.It’s a major blow to Vincenzo’s family; his mother is even forced into sex work to make ends meet. The youngster places the blame for his family’s plight on the local Duke du Taormina, a man named Alessandro de Leone, whom he feels is responsible for his father’s tough sentence. Years later, a politician named Benito Mussolini is building a following; he has many enemies, one of whom happens to be Alessandro. Mussolini offers a deal to Vincenzo: If he kills the duke, Mussolini will free his father—and give him the duke’s property, to boot. Vincenzo shoots the duke, but then his entire family is murdered by Mussolini’s thugs, so he decides to flee Sicily for America. In San Francisco, after years of hard work and ruthlessness, he winds up running a successful construction business. He also falls in love with a widow named Jacquetta Mercurio,who, as chance would have it, is the daughter of Alessandro. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Jacquetta’s nephew Alex Falcone enlists in the U.S. Army. His platoon fights their way from North Africa and on into Italy, where he’s wounded. In Sicily, he learns more about his grandfather Alessandro, the “Lion of Sicily.” Alex will go on to become much more involved in the future of the country than he ever imagined.

This account of Italy and the impact of its fascism makes for some intriguing, often overlooked history, such as the fate of the Italian monarchy following the war, as well as Western fears about a potential communist takeover of the country. By contrast, Vincenzo’s time in America is more familiar; this part of the book shows how he struggled to find work and master English before his rise to become a man of power, but it’s not particularly novel. He was, after all, a man who once cut a deal with Mussolini, so his later, cruel decisions, such as firing a friend as soon as he becomes a foreman, are unsurprising. But he’s not involved with the Italian American Mafia, which allows for some nuance, although he shows himself to be quite capable of committing a Mafia-like murder. Still, the question remains of just how aggressive he’ll become. Even after Vincenzo has a daughter with Jacquetta, there’s no telling who might raise his ire in the competitive world of San Francisco construction. Things kick up a notch when Alex enters World War II. Although readers will, of course, know how the war ends, they can’t predict the extent of Alex’s involvement; he witnesses some lesser-known terrors of the fighting in Italy, such as the massacre at the Ardeatine Caves. Although Vincenzo’s quest isn’t as engaging as Alex’s, the work ably portrays the clash between an old world and a modern one.

A studied novel about a volatile time in both American and Italian history.