The Wind Plows the Sky
In the dusty countryside of Agrigento, an aquamarine necklace is imprisoned among the branches of a shrub, forming a contour that recalls the image of the Madonna. The fact that it got tangled just in the plant fertilized by Sabrina’s tears seems to her a miracle to be shared. That miracle will instead soon reveal itself to be an expression of profane humanity.
We will thus meet the La Mannas, a wealthy family formed by Gregorio, a domineering father always in search of influential friends, his wife Liana, who spends her life between pilgrimages and Catholic events, and their children: the eldest Errico, who aspires to an outstanding career as the head of the psychiatric hospital; Gaspare, a geology student with strong moral integrity, and Sabrina, a busty yet naive mute girl who seems destined for a miserable existence.
A story begins from these five characters that, from 1959 and for about a decade, from Agrigento to Palermo, will cross paths with real people and will draw inspiration from events that the island will only know several years later, to tell the debut of what will later be defined as the "mafia bourgeoisie".
Dario Lanfranca, with his first novel, weaves delicately a story that expands from the particular to the general: the mafia like a gas with no odor that permeates everything, the detonator of an inevitable change. Following Sciascia’s footsteps, Lanfranca is skilled at bringing to light the visible and invisible effects of this intoxication that spares no one, showing how the most unsuspected people are affected by the inhaled substance. His novel also explores how the lost causes, with a gust of wind, are capable of overturning a destiny that already seemed dramatically sealed.
Press reviews
Domenico Rizzo - Giornale di Sicilia
Una riuscita opera prima che restituisce alla memoria del lettore la bellezza intrinseca di una terra segnata dalle asperità di un destino atavico.Leggi
Dario Lanfranca - ilLibraio.it
Dario Lanfranca racconta la genesi e le ispirazioni del suo romanzo "Il vento ara il cielo"Leggi