The Sicilian Cowboys

 “The Sicilian Cowboys be a mash-up of Kerouac and Salinger, but set in the 1970s Calabria of Spaghetti Western-style, wine-makin’ terrorists, Godfather-wan­nabe crooks, and jazzy, funky, rustic Madonna-like Donina, the love-interest of Roberto. This dude finds himself ranching in that Dixie-like swath of south­ern Italy, i.e. Calabria, next door to beautiful, perilous Sicily, and having to navigate his way among roust­abouts, wranglers, ne’er-do-wells, fist-fighting drunks, and Rolling-Stone-like “Wild Horses,”save that these steeds are tramplingly and stampedingly real. Joseph Maviglia maps a Kerouac-and-Steinbeck, broke-down America, except that it’s Calabria. His Roberto recalls Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, but also the speaker in Dylan’s Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues—bluesy, alien­ated misfit, who don’t fit in anywhere and can’t find love from anyone. This novella’s a Beat Romance wherein some folks are beatific and others get beaten down. Glue thine eyes herein, peeps!”

—George Elliott Clarke, 7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016 & 2017)