THE EVIL EYE, THE PURE HEART

A novelistic memoir offers an Italian immigration tale that honors the author’s grandmother, whose unflagging determination secured the American dream for her family.

Vittoria Maria Damato was born in January 1881 in a small, impoverished town in southern Italy. Her mother died when Vittoria was 9 years old, and her father, left with three young children to raise, remarried. But his second wife, Giuliana, was especially unloving toward Vittoria, the eldest. In 1897, at 16, Vittoria realized she must leave her father’s home. With trepidation but fortitude, she boarded a New York City–bound ship by herself, moved into an overcrowded tenement, and began working in the garment industry. Two years later, 23-year-old Leonardo Sorresse also left southern Italy for the promise of greater opportunities. After arriving in New York, he moved into Vittoria’s East Harlem neighborhood. The two were introduced to each other by mutual friends, and in 1901, they married. But unlike Vittoria, Leonardo, a volatile man with a grandiose self-image, was not happy with his immigrant status. When Vittoria became pregnant, he insisted she go back to Italy, moving in with his parents, for the birth of their first child. Leonardo returned for a visit and then refused to leave Italy. It would take another two decades and the birth of eight more children before Vittoria would see her dream of living in America realized. Most of the family information in Canzoniero’s narrative is derived from the stories told to him by his mother and her sisters. Then he augments their memories with black-and-white family photographs, imaginative dialogue and vignettes, engaging mini-tutorials on the history of southern Italy before and after the country was unified, and vividly detailed accounts of the bigotry Italians faced in an increasingly anti-immigrant America. The author’s lively descriptions of the Sorresses’ experiences are rich, depicting the uniquely Italian cultural, religious, and gastronomic customs that they brought with them to their new country and joyfully celebrated in New York’s closely knit Italian community. But it is Vittoria’s courage, cleverness, and resilience that give this touching book its heart.

A narratively engrossing, historically informative addition to the category of American immigration sagas.