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Italian and Italian American Books
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Featured Author
Interview
Joseph L. Cacibauda
Not for Self: A Sicilian Life and
Death in Marion
BOOK REVIEW
La Gazzetta Italiana
What inspired you to write Not for Self: A Sicilian Life
and Death in Marion?
While researching my first book, After Laughing Comes
Crying, I unearthed a copy of a death certificate of a distant
relative stating he was killed by a gunshot in self defense;
thus the impetus of the novel. I got the death certificate from
the Illinois Department of Records. I also obtained the
official murder indictments of the three assassins. One was
not part of the trial, and I surmise, in the book, he turned
state’s evidence on the two main killers. Incidentally, I had
begun working on getting the death certificate amended to
show, Jake was killed, but not in self-defense, as the
document shows. It’s a long and probably costly procedure,
so I ended the attempt.
What is the most important attribute of the book?
The history presented not only of Sicily, but of Ellis Island, and the times and in-
fighting of all the various factions within Williamson County is the important attribute.
When Jake Valenti, a Sicilian immigrant, steps off the train in Marion, Illinois,
Williamson County, he walks into an environment of coal miners' and union workers'
strikes, anti-Italian nationals, the Ku Klux Klan, warring gangs of bootleggers, wets
against drys, and dishonest officials taking bribes from all factions. When Prohibition
arrives, Jake makes the perilous decision to join the bootleggers. Not for Self is a
chronicle of his life in Marion, Illinois in a period known as Bloody Williamson.
Why should someone read it?
I don’t believe one has to be Italian to enjoy this book. That is to say, the intrigue, the
modern history of the politics, the Ku Klux Klan’s gain of power in the Midwest, the
strength of the coal mining industry within that era, all are historical realities where
Jake’s Sicilianism is only a small part of the story. So: In answer to the question, I
would say that one should read this book to learn that Chicago’s gangland
bootlegging era was not the most vicious times in Illinois. The era of Bloody
Williamson, is the most vicious times in Illinois and I would say part of the most
violent times in America.
How did you get involved with Arba Sicula?
[Arba Sicula is a non-profit international organization that promotes the language and
culture of Sicily.]
I had written After Laughing Comes Crying and was looking for someone to proof
read and edit the Sicilian and the Italian. I asked Dr. Cipolla if he would do that for
me. He liked the book and invited me to have Arba Sicula publish it. I am now a life
member of Arba Sicula and continue to marvel at the amount of writing, editing, and
even shipping out books, that Dr. Cipolla does. It is a true source of all things Sicilian.
In Not for Self, you provide historical notes and an extensive list of sources.
How much of the story is fact, how much is fiction?
In my writing, I like to put my characters in the middle of actual historical scenes, like
Forrest Gump. I would say the book is 50 percent fact and 50 percent fiction. For
example: I do have ships’ records, birth records of Jake, have studied his family, his
Sicilian environment, the house, the times, the behaviors are all facts, but the
dialogue and daily events of his life in Sicily has been created based on those facts.
In writing Not for Self and After Laughing Comes Crying, did you find
similarities in the stories?
Well, Jake Valenti, in Not for Self, is a character in After Laughing, Santo Tumanello.
Both of my characters are illiterate peasant farmers who tough out the rough times to
get out of Sicily and to make life better for their families. I try not to sugar-coat these
farmers. They were not gentle “Uncle Luigi” type people. They were difficult men who
would not suffer a lot of push back without bristling and fighting back. The books are
similar in that both stories supply a lot of local history, either in southern Illinois or
southern Louisiana.
During the end of the nineteenth century, Sicilian workers – looking for a better life – traveled to New
Orleans after being recruited to work on Louisiana sugar plantations. After Laughing Comes Crying
begins in Sant’Anna di Caltabellota (about 60 miles southwest of Marsala) the day after its annual
festival, and introduces Giovanni Graci, who is dissatisfied with the results of Italy’s unification, “The
north calls us Italians only to steal what’s ours.”
The struggles of life in Sicily are revealed through the stories of the townspeople, and strengthen the
reasons for Giovanni – and many others – to leave. Based on facts and heavily researched, their
journey by train to Palermo and then aboard ship to New Orleans is chronicled in detail, providing an
insiders look at the Italian immigrant experience; and in New Orleans, the hardship of life in the city
and work on the plantation offers a look into the Italian American experience.
After Laughing Comes Crying not only depicts the lives of Sicilian immigrants, it also addresses their
cultural characteristics. Cacibauda writes, “The traits would be passed from Sicilian-Americans
through generations of American-Sicilians, sporadically manifesting themselves as behaviors
distinctly called Sicilian, for reasons long forgotten.” After Laughing Comes Crying is Volume XVII in a
series on Sicilian studies published by Legas.
