Description
Maria Licata came to America with a fierce and simple dream: to give her family a life worth living. When New York grows too dangerous and work runs scarce, the family trades Brooklyn’s tenements for Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the punishing work of the railroad, bringing with them everything Sicilian immigrants carry: stubbornness, faith, and the memory of home.
Cheyenne does not go easy on the Licatas. Children are buried. The Spanish Flu takes what war hasn’t. Prohibition turns neighbors into criminals and criminals into kings. Wars, the Spanish flu, poverty, and the cold cruelty of prejudice have made that dream feel impossibly fragile.
When the family finally leaves for California in search of something steadier, Baldassare’s brother Nick is waiting there with opportunity, and Maria discovers that the most dangerous threats are the ones wearing a familiar face. The choices Nick makes will ripple through generations. And when World War II arrives, being Italian in America means living under a shadow of suspicion that no amount of loyalty can fully lift.
At the center of it all is Maria, the girl who crossed an ocean to find her father, now the woman holding a family together across decades of loss. Her faith deepens. Her hard-won literacy becomes her weapon. She keeps her illness to herself.
Based on the true story of the author’s Sicilian family, The Scent of Lemons, Part Two: The Far West unfolds between 1911 and 1944.
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