Elena Magnani returns to the rooms of the pasta Genoese writer (but who has lived in the upper Garfagnana for years) who loves meeting worlds through writing, thanks to which she draws the maps of her narrative journey. And, after the Tuscany and Val Serchio of «La Segnatrice», a novel set in the time of the Resistance, and of «Luminescenze», a story of friendship and death, after the Belfast of the Northern Irish conflict of «Come il cielo di Belfast”, he measures himself against the Messina earthquake of 1908, immersing himself in the darkness of those days with «Poisoned Sea. The saga of the Mazzeo family” (Giunti, with whom the author also published her first novel for children, «Scorza, Sibilla ei Guardiani della Terra», released last May), which will be presented today at 6pm at the Bonanzinga bookshop in Messina: the author will discuss with the public.
A novel, «Poisoned Sea», a title that quotes the famous Quasimodian verses: «The earthquake has been boiling / for two days, it is December of hurricanes / and poisoned sea», reported in the exergue by Magnani, who challenges the unspeakability of that immense tragedy, with which other writers have measured themselves, mostly from Messina, because the stories are thought of among themselves: Mario Falcone with «L’alba nera» (Fazi, 2008), Nadia Terranova with «Trema la notte» (Einaudi, 2022), Marosella Di Francia and Daniela Mastrocinque with «The woman who lived in the seaside cities» (Giunti, 2023). And “Poisoned Sea”, as the author writes, was born from the suggestion of the stories of her Messina grandparents Anna Luisa Greco and Santi Todaro, stories of real events and characters who really existed which give strength to other realistic but fictional ones.
The opening scene opens on the dream-nightmare of the young Tomaso Mazzeo, an evil “tintu spirit”, capable of “fascinating” and “rotting” anyone he meets, as the midwife who gave birth to him predicted, because he suffocated the twin with the umbilical cord. And a destiny of death seems to loom over the Mazzeo family: the father and uncle killed for obscure reasons; little Rosetta, the little sister, overcome by illness. But Tomaso, “Maso” to everyone, is the very image of resistance and so it is enough for him to meet two penetrating black eyes on the street and marvel every morning at the beauty of Messina to make the “tinted” thoughts vanish.
To earn a living and provide for his mother and little brother, Tomaso divides his time between work at the port and that of a goatherd, but before that the Mazzeo family lived in a beautiful house with food and clothes and many comforts, all granted by his grandfather’s business, not always lawful. But then in a few years the heritage is lost along with honor and respect, since “the father and uncle choose to become honest”, and moreover paying with their lives. Tomaso, on the other hand, handsome, bold and strong, “feels that he has a talent for those deals that were done at night, far from the law”, and so he does not always decide to be guilty of honesty, rather trying with expedients to ensure protection for the family and dreaming a future of rediscovered well-being. Tomaso shines with a special light, although forced into shabby clothes, his is the strength of courage and also of revenge and social redemption. The chance meeting with the beautiful Petra ignites even more the good part of his complex character in constant struggle with the “evil” one.
Meanwhile, life is difficult and not only for the Mazzeo family, there is a gray area of degradation, malfeasance and prostitution and two monsters must be overcome, hunger and the cold, in those days preceding the new year 1909; but the city is in turmoil, the port is teeming with English and Russian traders and ships and Italian torpedo boats, the splendid Palazzata with its thirty-six gates lives a busy daily life. And there, in one of those stately homes, by the Badastrello marquises, lives Petra, daughter of a maid, who remained under the protection of the owners of the house, intelligent and modern, who has become a teacher who dreams of rights for women and children equal to those of men . It is she who struck Tomaso, and was struck by him in turn, because Petra does not believe in superstitions and the only fascination she suffers is that of love.
But then there is the black dawn and the horror of the catastrophe. Messina is no longer there, yet for those who survive there is the need for a new resistance: the challenge now is to change to survive grief and loss. And go out of yourself, think of the many orphans that Petra takes care of after the earthquake, also Tomaso in his own way, and Sofia, Tomaso’s aunt, a merciful woman who really existed who after the earthquake took care of orphans and those in need of Messina. It is feminine energy that holds the world together, it is the task of mothers, even those who are not biologically mothers, to go through the darkness, to save their children. And start again.