PAS DE SICILE. RETURN TO CANDORA by Domenico Cacopardo Crovini (Ianieri): interview with the author

“Pas de Sicile. Return to Candora” by Domenico Cacopardo Crovini (Ianieri, 2023): interview with the author and excerpt from the novel.

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by Eliana Camaioni

Pass de Sicile: a negation that affirms, with Sicily in the title.
Pass de Sicile: a different novel, attentive to detail, with the precision of the magistrate and the eye of the investigator, which progressively transforms it from a plot novel into a detective story, those of which its author, Domenico Cacopardo, is the undisputed master.
Pass de Sicile: a story that becomes a Verghian family saga, set in Candora, an imaginary town in the north where Domenico Cacopardo has lived for years now, bringing Sicily into his heart and into his pages, because the ruthless logic of this well-constructed story is Sicilian, which it exposes typical logics of one mafia all Sicilian, of money made quickly thanks to powerful friends, of illegitimate and disinherited children, of slimy and clandestine relationships in the workplace.
A new Cycle of the vanquishedIn short, dystopian compared to the Island, in which everything changes to never change.
The story arose when Domenico Palardo, a retired magistrate, was entrusted with the editing of a volume celebrating the centenary of the constitution of the municipality of Candora, and was asked to write the preface in the form of an essay that would make the memory of Siro Sirioni eternal , an excellent citizen, who gave prestige, luxuries and riches to Candora thanks to his flourishing business as an entrepreneur. Which will end, despite all predictions, with sinking into an increasingly deadly and intricate swamp of secrets not to be revealed and characters not to be named, in an escalation that will lead to threats, damage and murder.

– Pas de Sicile: why?
Because, after 18 novels and many short stories set in Sicily, I wanted to do justice to the part of me that is from the Po Valley, just as my mother (from Piacenza) was from the Po Valley with her many brothers. My mother was the 18th and some of her relatives were crucial to my education. I lived in war and post-war Sicily, knowing nothing of what was happening in Italy. I learned this by living for several months with my uncle, a partisan commander, and by visiting a different horizon than the one in which I had lived for the first 12 years of my life.
This is the fundamental reason, to which I add the stimulus coming from a true story that I had learned about by chance.

– Who is Siro Sieroni?
An Italian like many others who is willing to do anything to get rich. Including abusing family trust.

– A new investigation, this time not investigative in the classic sense but anthropological or familiar, which however leads to a mystery to be solved and mysteries to (not) be revealed: a sly narrative game with which the consolidated experience of his hand as a mystery writer leads the reader on unexpected tracks. It’s correct?
Certainly correct. Also because, surrounded by fictionalized and fictionalized aspects, the substance of the narrative reflects an investigation conducted by me to delve deeper into the case which then transformed “into the case”.

– Narrative moments alternate with lyrical pages, in which he tells us not only Sicily but his Sicily. How much do you miss that land?
I miss it a lot and I realize it by counting the days of the week in which I dream of being in the Ionian sea fishing with my fishing boat or with some friend who is passionate about the sea and fishing like me. Of course, on the threshold of 88 (which I will turn this month of April) I cannot have any regrets. It would be a lack of respect for what I have been and the navigation I have accomplished in all this time. Not even regrets. I therefore accept the condition of survivor – none of the friends of my generation are alive – continuing to do what I like best: writing about current political events in newspapers, imagining and creating stories.
– Will we go back to reading the mystery writer Cacopardo, or are we at a definitive literary turning point?
Dear Eliana – can I allow myself to call you that? – you know better than me how little genre classifications fit into the mind of a writer. So much so that I don’t consider myself a crime writer and I have been considered by critics to be more of a ‘social’ writer (which I don’t really know what that means) in the sense that, through crime, I try to tell the reality of contemporary or past life. Of course, I have a book ready. It should be out in November. I’m making the final adjustments.
Is it a mystery book? I don’t know. Of course, there is the crime, but there is also the Italy of today and tomorrow. For the rest I appeal to the Eleventh Amendment and I avail myself of the right not to respond further.

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The book description: “Pas de Sicile. Return to Candora” by Domenico Cacopardo Crovini (Ianieri, 2023)

Appointed by the Municipality of Candora (imaginary, evocative of whiteness), Domenico Palardo, a retired magistrate, must coordinate the volume celebrating the 100th anniversary of the constitution of the Municipality itself and write the opening essay dedicated to the character who created the development of the town with the companies he founded.
But the story of Siro Sieroni, the character, hides some secrets that his daughters try to make impenetrable.
Investigating and digging in the town, asking the son born from Sieroni’s relationship, Palardo learns of the secrets carefully buried in the family of this personality.
Threats, damages and a crime are the framework of this completely private and completely legitimate investigation. Born to praise the memory of Siro Sieroni, it ends with a murder, the perpetrator of which is eventually discovered thanks to the intuition of Doctor Palardo.

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Domenico Cacopardo Crovini, born in 1936, lived around Italy following his father, a public official and retired State Councilor, and collaborated and collaborates with numerous national and local newspapers. He taught at the universities of Turin and Rome-Luiss. He has written twenty novels, including the well-known and successful series of detective stories featuring the magistrate Agrò, published by Marsilio. He has also published with Mondadori, Baldini & Castoldi, Diabasis and others.

He has published for Ianieri Edizioni Pater (2022).

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