Saint of the Narrows Street emerges as more than "an oddly named block" in William Boyle's exceptional epic about a working-class Brooklyn, N.Y, neighborhood whose generations of residents rarely leave. Boyle's lean prose depicts this "western edge of Gravesend" as a place of broken dreams and unwise choices, where "the terror of regret" festers.
Boyle's ambitious novel spans 18 years as violence, loss, and secrets rule the neighborhood. It opens in 1986, when 28-year-old Risa "feels old and worn out already" and regrets marrying Saverio "Sav" Franzone; her only joy is her eight-month-old son, Fab. Sav's brutality emerged quickly in their marriage. Risa never thought she could leave until the night he pulls a gun on her while she is holding Fab, then threatens her sister, Giulia. Trying to protect her sister, Risa unintentionally kills Sav when she hits him in the head with a cast-iron pan. The panicked Risa seeks out Sav's best friend, Christopher "Chooch" Gardini, who helps the sisters bury Sav. The three of them tell everyone that Sav took off--a rumor easily believed.
Risa, Giulia, and Chooch maintain their silence as the novel returns to them in 1991, 1998, and 2004. Risa dotes on Fab even as she begins to see, by 1998, that he has "trouble in his blood. His father breaking through in him," and he grows obsessed about what happened to Sav. Meanwhile, Boyle (City of Margins; The Lonely Witness) depicts how a murder-suicide, mobsters, a blackmailing priest, marriages, and deaths all affect the neighborhood, and the area itself changes due to real estate developers.
Boyle's sympathy and understanding for his damaged characters, accented by crisp dialogue, elevate the engrossing plot and show how a place shapes people. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer