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The Last Italian: A Saga in Three Parts
Category:
Historical Fiction
ISBN-10: 1695199510
Type: Fiction
Pages: 303
Copyright: October 1, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781695199514
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Italian fisherman Carlo Como only thought his valuable catch that morning would mean he could marry Tonia, his love. Instead it set off a chain of events that would impact himself and his family for generations to come.
In 1882, twenty-four-year-old Carlo Como goes out fishing one dawn on the wide river near his northern Italian village of Castrubello. The Pirino has provided a living for the Como family for generations, but this morning Carlo hauls in a very different catch: three large white rocks known as "God's Teeth." The valuable stones, coveted by local ceramic-makers, will allow him to marry his love, Tonia Vacci, a worker in the town's dismal silk mill.
But the fisherman's good fortune is resented by estate manager Baldassare Gaetano, greedy both for Tonia and the profit from the stones. Carlo's discovery unleashes a chain of love and jealousy, courage and betrayal, despair and perseverance that will define the Como and Vacci families during the tumultuous decades to come.
Tonia's brother, Ettore, is determined to advance through life on his own merits and bids farewell to Castrubello. With a hot-headed partner he forms a construction company and heads south to carve The King's Road through the mountains of Campania.
Ettore soon finds himself fighting an impossible deadline and a band of cut-throat brigands led by the legendary Corsicano, determined to violently halt the unwanted intruder so brazenly threatening his mountain lair.
PULLING GOD'S TEETH is the first volume of "The Last Italian, A Saga in Three Parts", an epic tale that begins in 1882 Italy and spans more than sixty years of social and political tumult. Three generations of characters, bound by blood and shared histories, face rapacious landowners, deadly epidemics, unforgiving warfare, dangerous emigration, and Fascist brutality during the turbulent era of the Kingdom of Italy.
As the series' protagonists struggle to balance ambition, love, and loyalty against the harsh demands of survival, inscrutable Fate forever stands waiting to randomly intervene.
Excerpt
A sudden hoof-stamping and a whinny sounded from the riverbank. “You, man, in the boat! What is that you have there?”
Intent on distributing the weight from the rocks along his boat’s bottom boards—and distracted by his daydreams—Carlo had not heard anyone approach. He looked up to see two horsemen near the shoreline, peering down from their perches. The horses were fine and well-groomed, their noses in the scrub grass.
Carlo knew the rider of the smaller chestnut horse from his visits to Villa d’Ambrosso. Gaetano Baldassare, the estate manager, was in his forties, lean, with a hound’s face. He wore a dark coat and gloves, tan breeches, tall boots. And the other? The sun was behind him, his mount now nervously cantering.
“Do you not see who is here, you ignorant clown?” Baldassare barked. “It is Marchese d’Ambrosso himself, show him respect!” Carlo lifted his hat to shade his eyes.
It was indeed the marchese. Known to everyone as a heavy gambler and spendthrift, Federico Benedetto Lucantonio d’Ambrosso was the latest rendition of a much-diminished line. Carlo had seen him occasionally through the window of the villa’s coach as it passed. He recognized the nobleman from his large gray mustache waxed up on its ends and the red, heavy-lidded eyes. The marchese wore a black silk top hat and grasped a telescope in one hand. His paunch protruded through his unbuttoned blue coat onto his saddle.
“What is your name, fisherman?” asked d’Ambrosso, with a tug on the reigns to stop his mount from fidgeting.
Carlo held his hat forward to provide further shade and spread his feet for balance.
“I am Carlo Como, Marchese,” he answered. “Forgive me, signore, for not greeting you. The sun, you see.”
“Ah.” The aristocrat nodded knowingly. Resting the bronze-trimmed telescope across his saddle, he opened a small silver box from his wainscot, pinched snuff up his nose and convulsively sneezed. His big horse nickered at the shifted weight.
“I asked what you have there,” called Baldassare. “It is certainly not fish.”
Carlo looked down at the three stones sitting plain in their stark whiteness. “No, signore, you are exactly right. Not fish,” Carlo responded. “They are rocks!”
Carlo heard a snort from the marchese. Baldassare frowned and dismounted, keeping hold of his reins.
“Your rudeness is appalling,” the estate manager said. “Let me remind you. To fish on this river is a privilege, it is not a right!"
The fisherman drew in a breath. His smart mouth had put him in hot water before. Baldassare was known to be a prickly one, keen to assert his authority. The marchese leaned heavily on Baldassare’s advice. It was a stupid gamble to cross him.
“Yes, I understand this, excuse me, Signor Baldassare.”
“The fee that you people pay to do your business out here, the estate can refuse your annual payment, you know. Then where would you be?”
Nearby, the marchese raised his telescope again and stood in his stirrups as an elegant, black-crowned heron glided overhead.
Refuse my annual payment? Carlo inwardly scoffed. Certainly, a joke. Everyone knew the lord spent money like water. He steadied his boat with a push on his oar. “Believe me, signore, we fishermen know exactly how thoroughly you bless us.”
Baldassare gave a sharp look. Carlo bit his evil tongue.
“Stand to the side, let me see better,” said Baldassare. Carlo slid a step, slightly rocking the boat. The white rocks shone against the worn brown boards beneath them. Carlo saw a glitter of greed in the manager’s eyes as he recognized their value. But the flash of avarice quickly returned to a blank stare. “Those belong to the marchese, not to you,” he said officiously.
“Signore, surely you are mistaken,” Carlo said, too quickly. “As you say, we pay for the right to support ourselves from this river. Why would there be any question about this?” He fought to keep quick anger from affecting his voice. His temper had never been his friend.
“You purchase from the estate the right to catch fish,” replied Baldassare, dismounting. “Not to dredge the riverbed for whatever you want. Bring those to me.”
“Marchese d’Ambrosso, good signore, I appeal to you,” called out Carlo, looking past the manager. “My family and I, we use these stones to weigh down our nets in those parts of the river where the current is strongest.”
The startled nobleman had barely been tending to the conversation. “What is this fuss, Baldassare?” he said, flustered at being caught off-guard. “We have wasted too much time with this meaningless matter. Let the man be.”
The estate manager’s color rose on his neck. “Don Federico, this man is a poacher,” Baldassare insisted. “Of course, the stones in themselves are meaningless, you are right to care nothing for them. It is the principle, my lord. He has not the right to scavenge!”
Carlo viewed Baldassare with thin-lipped disdain. Obviously, the manager was angling to sell the stones for himself, to line his pockets with Carlo’s hard-earned prizes. A corrupt man, thought Carlo.
D’Ambrosso squeezed his eyes closed and sneezed loudly from another snuff dose. “Poaching rocks, Baldassare? Tish, Tosh. Lying about fishnets? Enough of this nonsense. They are just stones, after all! Look around, we have plenty, everywhere! I want to get on with my morning ride.” He suddenly stopped talking and again stood in his stirrups. “Dio mio, man! A red-throated diver!” With that, he spurred away.
Carlo suppressed his smirk by pursing his lips.
Baldassare’s face was a mask as he turned back to Carlo. He leaned toward the boat, pointing at the fisherman’s chest with a gloved finger. “Listen to me, Como. You may think you won here today but think again. I will not be made the fool.” He remounted and followed Marchese d’Ambrosso, galloping in hard pursuit of his bird.
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