Seasons in Basilicata: A Year in a Southern Italian Hill Village

Mr. Yeadon's book makes for a pleasant read, but in one sense it is the chronicle of a missed opportunity. For, despite his months as a resident of a village in Basilicata, and his pleasure in the rich, and extensively chronicled world of Mezziogiorno hospitality, there are very large areas of life in the village that remained closed to him. Perhaps any outsider, no matter who, would need years to go deeper into the secrets of such a place. I also surmise that Mr. Yeadon, who by his own admission is a poor linguist, was handicapped by his limited knowledge of Italian, not to mention of the local dialects. Still, the author's affection for the places and people he describes is real, there are many enjoyable passages, and the landscape sketches he has made in inkwash are very appealing. I do fault the editorial staff of Harper for a poor job of copy editing. There are way too many adjectives, and the prose style tends to the purple, with too many clichés and even mistakes in grammar and diction. The book is also, in my view, too long by about 15%. A leaner, more tightly edited text would have improved the final product.