America, America | The echoes

In “America, America”, Elia Kazan recounted with a lyricism rarely equaled the journey of Stavros, a young Greek from Anatolia embarking for America at the end of the 19th century.^e century to escape the oppression of the Muslim Turks. Without doubt Michel Moutot had this reference in mind, among many others who inspired him in his abundant research, when he wrote “America”. At the Agence France-Presse reporter, ex-correspondent in New York and winner of the Albert-London Prize, Stavros is called Vittorio. A peaceful penniless fisherman, he is forced to leave his native island of Marettimo, off the coast of Sicily, to escape the Mafia, following a particularly unfortunate combination of circumstances. In self-defense, he killed the son of the local godfather who came to punish him for having seduced his sister, Ana Fontarossa. Despite a love more than shared with the beautiful, Vitto has no other choice but to jump in the first transatlantic, hoping to put as much distance as possible between him and his enemies, whose influence is exerted far beyond. beyond the Italian peninsula.

From Naples to New York, then to New Orleans, San Francisco and Monterrey, “America” tells the oh-so-incredible fate of Vittorio Bevilacqua (the “water drinker”), renamed Victor Walter by an official American immigration, “Sicilian fisherman on the run, murderer on the run, in love with a woman he is convinced he will never see again, future father without knowing it, son and brother of women killed by his fault”. The book also follows the attempts of Ana, now mother of a little Giulia, to find the father of her child despite the surveillance of the Mano Nera, always eager for revenge. At the very beginning of the twentieth^e century, will the new world that is being built in hope and suffering offer a second chance to Sicilian Romeo and Juliet?

Meaning of the story

After describing the construction of the towers of New York by Mohawks reputed to be insensitive to vertigo (“Sky of steel”), then the extraordinary westward rush of whalers from Nantucket who went to seek their fortune in a booming San Francisco (“Sequoias”), Michel Moutot continues his exploration of America with an intact sense of story. “America” is not only a thrilling adventure and love story, but also a particularly well-documented history book, in which we meet, among other characters, a larger-than-life Jack London. Particularly instructive is the description of New Orleans, an easy-going South girl prone to excess, like that of the quest for rose gold, the famous Alaskan salmon. A new readers price in perspective?