The turbulent history of Post-Reconstruction New Orleans collides with the plight of Sicilian immigrants seeking refuge in America.
Antonio, a young man fleeing Sicily after avenging his father's murder, embarks on a harrowing journey to New Orleans with the help of Jesuit priests expelled from his homeland. However, the promise of a fresh start quickly sours as Antonio becomes entangled in a volatile clash of cultures, corruption, and crime.
In the late 19th century, Italian immigrants in New Orleans faced hostility, exploitation, and a brutal system of indentured servitude. Antonio becomes a witness to history as a bitter feud over the docks spirals into violence, culminating in the assassination of Irish police chief David C. Hennessy. The ensuing trial of nine Italians and the shocking lynching of eleven innocent men ignited international outrage, threatening to sever ties between the United States and Italy.
Caught in the crossfire of prejudice and power struggles, Antonio fights to survive while grappling with his own past and future. His journey weaves a gripping tale of resilience, betrayal, and the enduring hope for justice. Cobblestones: A New Orleans Tragedy is a poignant reminder of the human cost of intolerance and the courage it takes to rebuild a life from ashes.
"A phenomenal epic account of a forgotten slice of New Orleans history for fans of Scorsese / Coppola-type cinematic dramas such as Midnight Vendetta and The Godfather!" ~ HFC Reviews
Excerpt
Bisacquino, Sicily
June 1, 1889
6:10 AM
From his first breath, he became eligible for death, but nothing impaled his mortal existence more, than the murder of his best friend. For on this day, the young Sicilian contandini began his mournful morning with dreadful thoughts. The misty dawn coiled him in a flint-gray shroud, which reminded him of the fragility of life—his and others. As the shards of sunlight beamed through the narrow alleys and streets of his mountain village, he knew his innocence, and his humble life’s tillage in the undulating soil on the green hills of his family’s olive groves and grape-ladened vineyards, were changing with every fleeting step. Even the air he breathed stung his senses with a tomb-like stench.
The clopping hooves of a solitary black horse on the ancient cobblestone streets echoed against the old tan and yellow stucco homes and shops that framed the Piazza Triona. The horse needed no guidance, as it had made this trip many times. It needed no stinging whip to force him to tug the black lacquered hearse up the hill towards the yawning doors of St. John the Baptist Church, where a French Jesuit, Jacque Fontebuis, waited with his hands clasped around his Missal for the Requiem Mass.
As the undertaker, Vincenzo Trambatore, stomped on the hearse’s wooden brakes, Father Fontebuis nodded his head and doffed his black Biretta. The undertaker silently removed his black coppola and nodded. Across the piazza, a lamplighter extinguished the village’s lamps. For a moment, those were the only men near the church, but that was about to change.
As Father Fontebuis and the undertaker approached the rear doors of the hearse, their funereal countenance was diverted to the hobnail thumping of young peasant’s boots against one of Bisacquino’s six hundred-year-old cobblestone streets, leading down from the outskirts of town to the piazza. The young peasant, Antonio Carravella, panting from his run, slowly approached the priest and the undertaker. He stopped and looked past the priest and through the oval glass doors of the hearse. He took one step closer, and snatched his brown coppola and placed it over his heart.
