Word: sicilianism
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...develops that Leroy's wife has been made pregnant by a chicken-flickin' preacher. Leroy declares that vengeance will be his (more Sicilian tomato sauce) and sets out to seduce the preacher's wife. Pryor plays the preacher's role-essentially the same cash-unto-me evangelist he has done on television-with superbly lubricious piety, and also plays Leroy's father, an impressively dirty old man who should have been given more lines...
DIED. Joseph Zerilli, 79, godfather of the Detroit Mafia; of heart disease; in Grosse Pointe, Mich. A Sicilian immigrant who started as a construction worker, Zerilli rose to underworld prominence during the Prohibition era and reportedly built a narcotics, prostitution and loan-sharking empire that annually netted $150 million during the '60s. Although he repeatedly denied that he was involved in organized crime-maintaining that he was simply the owner of the Detroit Italian Baking Co.-FBI bugging transcripts linked him to the underworld. After the 1975 imprisonment of his son, Zerilli came under scrutiny by police investigating...
...difficult for Durrell to equal Bitter Lemons, his 1957 portrait of Cyprus. But then, Durrell lived for three years on Cyprus-owned a small old house, taught school, eventually worked for the British government as the island drifted into insurrection. Durrell went to Sicily as a tourist aboard the "Sicilian Carousel," a bus tour clockwise around the island...
Although he is a connoisseur of Mediterranean islands, Durrell sometimes seems to be laboring as hard as his red tour bus grinding up the mountain switchbacks. The reader must listen to Roberto, a wise and tactful Sicilian guide, discoursing on the first-aid kit aboard the bus; there is a pause while the French ladies buy postcards...
...Durrell cheats a bit in Sicilian Carousel. He asks at one point: "What was Sicily? What was a Sicilian?" He never comes close to an answer, except for certain gestures, shades of light, knowledgeable asides. Never mind. The questions will keep, and they were probably too solemn anyway...