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Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family

by Karen Tintori

Published: 2007-07-24
Hardcover : 256 pages

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Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree. Her grandmother Josie had emigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's nine siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old ...

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Introduction

Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree.

Her grandmother Josie had emigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's nine siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans.

But Josie had a sister nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia---a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber, and when she returned home a married woman, her fate was sealed. Even eighty years and two generations later, Frances was not spoken of, and her memory was suppressed.

Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn-of-the-century Detroit. Tracing the history and insular world of Italian immigrants back to the old country, Karen Tintori shows what they came from, what they hoped for, and how the hopes and dreams of America fell far short for her great-aunt Frances.

"Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price -- ostracism or worse at the time, and obliteration from the memory of succeeding generations. Few of these transgressors paid a higher price than Frances Costa, who was brutally murdered by her own brothers in a 1919 Sicilian honor killing in Detroit. And fewer yet have had a more tenacious successor than Frances's great-niece, Karen Tintori, who refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the convinction that all history, in the end, is family history."
-Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century

"Switching back and forth between rural Sicily and early 20th century Detroit, Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone. In exploring her own family's secret history, Karen Tintori gives voice not just to her victimized aunt but to all Italian-American daughters and wives silenced by the power of omerta. Half gripping true-crime story, half moving family memoir, Unto the Daughters is both fascinating and frightening, packed with telling details and obscure folklore that help bring the suffocating world of a Mafia family to life."
--Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

(from) Chapter One

If not for her father's passport, defaced but not destroyed, Francesca never would have surfaced. She would have remained a woman lost to history, her story swallowed in the depths of the Detroit River off Belle Isle. ...

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Discussion Questions

From the Author:

1. How and why are certain traits in parent passed down to their children (or not)?

2. What are some of the themes of the book?

3. How do you feel Frances's experiences in America led her to her elopement? Do you think she would have done the same thing had the family remained in Italy?"

4. Do you think the author chose to foreshadow Frances' death? If so, why? Why do you think the author segues to the scene where she (Karen) is drowning, then suddenly switches gears into a memory of a closet in her grandmother's house?

5. Would one of the Costa boys have been punished had they defied the family? Who would have meted out the punishment? Would it have been as harsh as Frances’?

6. What about the law? How does a person just vanish, unaccounted for?

7. Clearly, the Church was important in Italian-American society.
Did they just look the other way?

8. Immigrants assimilate, but not all have to deal with familial murder. How did Frances’ murder affect her family’s assimilation?

9. Do you think Frances anticipated her fate? Why? Why not?

10. How did the survivors handle the relaying of Frances’ story and the incredible weight of emotions that were bundled with it?

11. Was the aftermath of Frances’ murder any different because her family was in the US and not in Sicily?

12. In nearly every version the author heard about what happened to her great-aunt, Frances was at fault. Why would this occur in the 21st century?

13. Would Frances have met the same fate had the family remained in Sicily? Why? Why not?

14. What does Frances’ story say about the value of women in the culture? What cultural values impacted its treatment of women?

15. How does Frances’ story resonate today? What has changed? Why? What remains the same? Why?

16. Do you think Frances’ story will have an impact on the present generation of her family today? Why? How?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author's web site
»	Author Bio

Notes From the Author to the Bookclub

A note from Karen to BookMovement members:

“That’s the one they got rid of. Did your mother ever tell you?” My mother’s youngest sister stood pointing to an obliterated entry on the passport her grandfather had used to bring his wife and children from Sicily in 1914. My gaping mouth was all the answer she needed.

“Never mind.” She snapped the passport shut, returning it to a molding shoebox filled with the family documents I’d been begging for years to see and photocopy.

Many genealogists uncover secrets in their family’s past. I uncovered an unspeakable tragedy that took me more than a decade to unravel, one heartache at a time.

The child obliterated from that passport, erased from her family for more than eight decades, was my grandmother’s sister, Francesca, murdered in Detroit when she was just 16.

The scars of that murder have never healed. They bleed freshly today with relatives who’d rather that Frances’ secret had remained buried, even though they themselves had no part in the horror.

But Frances’ story is important. Her fate is as old as Juliet’s – and as current as today’s headlines.

From the moment I learned of her existence, I vowed to uncover the truth of her murder. I vowed to tell her story. To give her back her name.

Book Club Recommendations

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Member Reviews

Overall rating:

"Nonfiction that reads like fiction"by Kristine S. (see profile) 03/16/08

Our book group enjoyed the discussion generated by Unto the Daughters. It was amazing to us that this is not fiction. The secrets kept in families and the quiet whispers can truly affect generations,... (read more)

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