How Fires End
David Vassallo is a teenager growing up in Little Melilli in Middletown, Connecticut. He is the object of a familial promise of revenge and a curse, suffering at the hands of his nemesis, Tony. Words, apologies, and promises mean nothing. The reader expects some kind of victory on one side, but the outcome is tragic and belies any justice. This story has three narrative voices, one by David, another by his strict father, Salvatore, and another by Vincenzo, who tries to be a buffer between the past and the present. The family comes from the Sicilian town of Melilli, the place where residents profoundly worship St. Sebastian, where the family’s long curse began.
In 1943, Salvatore’s twin brothers are killed while playing with an unexploded grenade. Salvatore loses his faith in God and the power of Saint Sebastian; in his boundless grief he blows up the statue of Saint Sebastian, and more violence ensues, along with the beginning of a curse on the Vassallo clan. An Italian soldier guides the family to immigrate to Connecticut. In the present, with the loss of David, Salvatore tells the story of this Italian disaster. Vincenzo completes the tale about how loss can twist a person’s life and only grows malevolent with time. The children of two families hate and fight with more ferocity than the soldiers of the war.
Rafalà has created a world of secret sins becoming known, what it takes to forgive, and what happens when the curse extends beyond the grave to everyday life. This tale ends with a redemptive hope that also exudes sadness. Remarkable multigenerational historical fiction.
