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Summary: The alluring "rottenness & richness" of Southern Italy
Review: Peter Robb's vivid narrative about Italy's glorious but mysterious south layers history, cuisine, politics, and corruption into a fascinating and seductive tale. Robb chronicles the career and scandal of Giulio Andreotti, the seven-time prime minister of Italy recently accused of Mafia associations. A starred review in "Publisher's Weekly" (Feb. 8, 1998) finds the book an "epic story of evil and nobility." Combining interviews, political theory, and the opulence and starkness which is southern Italy, "Midnight in Sicily" does not forget that a country's psyche is defined by rich food and extraordinary art.
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Summary: A rich post-war perspective of a decaying culture
Review: Reading Robb's panorama of soutern Italy and Sicily since WW2 is like attending a great opera while vaguely observing nefarious societal deeds in the next row. In addition to a historical sleighride Robb enables an understanding of a rich but sadly exploited culture. This is a valuable journey.
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Summary: Spellbinding, elusive
Review: Reads more like a novel.Characters, settings, rich history woven expertly ... at times will make you stop reading to comtemplate ... implications ... what is between the lines ... and meditate on such hearts of darkness.
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Summary: Compelling travel into the heart of Sicily
Review: Robb is a deft researchist who's left no ground uncovered in his penetration of the facinating island of Sicily. Beautifully drawn descriptive passages and engaging wit show that he's far more than an ordinary journalist out to condense or rehash the reams of documets he's examined in discussing the problems that beset this crime-tormented nation within a nation; he's a talented writer who offers here a deeply observed response to a place and its people.
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Summary: "Underpasses, Crypts, Holes and Hiding Places"
Review: Sicily is one of those places that has seemingly been picked clean by numerous waves of invaders, from the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, to in our own days the U.S. Army of Omar Bradley and George Patton. But was it really? There definitely remains a hard core of hardcore Sicilian-ness that finds its perfect expression in the mafia with all its traditions of silence, corruption, violence, and faithfulness onto death.But how does one approach such a vast reserve of secrecy? Australian expatriate Peter Robb has hit upon a kind of double helix organizing principle that involves slowly rotating around its subject matter from several different points of view. In this helix are mixed food, history, culture, art, landscape, and all that is Sicily. We find Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Lucky Luciano, the painter Renato Guttuso, Michele Sindona, and the Vatican enmeshed in a kind of dance of death. But in the end, we are no closer to proof that arch-politician Giulio Andreotti sold his soul to Uncle Toto Riina of the Cosa Nostra. Arriving at this proof is not Robb's goal. His spiralling book has taken it all in and fascinated us with stories of how the fork was invented, how di Lampedusa's talent was made known to the outside world, what happened to Palermo's Vucciria market, how Guttuso's friends were all kept from visiting the dying painter by a cabal of servants -- and perhaps by Andreotti? This maddening book that goes nowhere and everywhere lacks only two things (for which I blame the publisher): maps and photographs. I kept getting lost, but I never lost interest. The lines of Eugenio Montale that form the book's epigraph describe it all: History isn't
the devastating bulldozer they say it is.
It leaves underpasses, crypts, holes
and hiding places.
Rating: 
Summary: A Schizophrenic Look at Sicily Misses the Mark
Review: The author of this virtually unreadable book cannot decide if he is writing a travel book, a cookbook, a history book, or a commentary on the complex relationship between the mafia, the government, and the Sicilian people. This unorganized and schizophrenic review of the aforementioned subjects jumps from topic to topic and era to era without warning and with such speed that it makes one dizzy. A detailed description of a meeting that took place between a mafia boss and a government official is suddenly interrupted by a maddeningly detailed account of a meal that the author had eaten in a particular restaurant, complete with an equally mind-numbing description of the restaurant itself and the surrounding landscape. Moreover, the author frequently interjects his own socialogical/philosophical comments regarding the mafia, the govenernment, and the Italian people that are unfounded and frequently miss the mark. I would not recommend this book.
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Summary: Maddeningly structured, yet indispensable
Review: This book is not structured for easy reading (if it is structured at all!). Robb writes with considerable insight about Sicilian cuisine, the great Sicilian writers Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Leonardo Sciascia, and the most famous Sicilian painter Renato Guttuso. His main focus and the raison d'être for his return to Italy (he earlier lived in Naples and Sicily for fourteen years) was the beginning of the trial of Giulio Andreotti, the most powerful politician in postwar Italy, lifetime senator, minister in most postwar Italian governments, and prime minister seven times. Robb has serious criticisms of the public stances and effects of Sciascia and Guttuso, but there are also genuine heroes in his exceedingly dark narrative, specifically, the martyred magistrates Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, carabinieri General Carlo Dalla Chiesa, anti-corruption crusading Palermo mayor (now Minister of the Interior) Leoluca Orlando, and the Countess Marzotto (Gussoto's mistress, muse, and recurrent subject). The way the book keeps returning to Andreotti and Riina and the proliferation of names of less prominent Mafiosi and officials (not that these are distinct sets!) makes it difficult to follow, and demands a high level of commitment by readers to keeping the pieces straight - even though, as in Sciascia's fiction, the pieces of the puzzle are anything but clear and straightforward. The difficulty of following the narrative is further complicated by long discourses on Naples. Robb fails to connect the organized crime syndicates in Naples and Palermo except insofar as both are parts of the nation of Italy that is deeply compromised by Andreotti and his allies. Although the book has a partial list of characters, it desperately needs an index so that readers can refresh their memory of who's who. Since he is writing about extremely murky realities, the plotline cannot be completely clear, but a more straightforward exposition is imaginable. It also needs an epilogue now that the Andreotti trial (the beginning of which Robb returned to Sicily for) has ended. There is a great deal of information - not just on political/criminal collaboration but on other aspects of Sicily - in this book. I amd glad that I did not read it before going to Sicily, but it makes for fascinating reading after leaving the island that Lampedusa considered eternally exploited and misgoverned. For reading in advance or while there, I'd recommend Mary Simeti's _On Persephone's Island, instead.
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Summary: Molto bene
Review: This book is one of the very best I have read on an aspect of Italian life and politics.(The other is Christ Stopped At Eboli) I am going to read it again, as some of the detail is fading from memory. Robb, a long-term ex-pat writes seriously about the underbelly of Italian life, but also conveys hislove and respect for the country, its traditions and food especially! When visiting my husbands relatives in Sicily, I found the undercurrents there present - men with rifles nd wolf-dogs standing in country lanes at dusk, protecting their orange trees, for example. My cousins not naming the menace, but refering to it obliquely, shrugging their shoulders....my uncle working two jobs, the first as a respected paramedic in an ambulance service, but earning enough for a basic existence only, but with the promise of a state pension. The second job in the afternoon in order to afford the types of consumer goods and housing that the now advanced Italian nation takes for granted. Much has changed since WW2, since the mass emigrations from a broken country. But much also remains the same and Robb gets to the heart of it beautifully.
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Summary: A one-of-a-kind book
Review: This book was an impulse buy for me - what a pick up. I've never quite read anything like it: part history, part political thiller, part travelogue, part food/art criticism. It's an amazing stew that Peter Robb pulls off magnificently. He's especially enlightening on the complex character of Guilio Andreotti. You'll cast a very arched eyebrow at Andreotti's recent acquittal on all charges after reading Robb's account of 'The Honorable Senator.' If you have any interest whatsoever in post-WWII European history, this is a volume you can not live without. It's a finely researched set of insights into Italy's evolution from 1945 to present.
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Summary: Excellent Intro to Recent Sicilian History & Food
Review: Though his style is idiosyncratic and thus sometimes difficult to completely follow, Robb's short work is an excellent introduction to Sicily--its food and Mafia culture. Never boring or trite, Robb tells the fascinating story of the extent of the Mafia's influence over Italian political and popular culture from its humble roots in Sicily. Along the way he expertly tells the stories of fascinating Italians at all strata of the society and their universal love for, and the central role played by, food in their culture. Truly a delight to read.
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