Saint of the Narrows Street

The year is 1986, and the place is Gravesend, Brooklyn. Risa, a devout and sincere young mother, is married to Sav, a bad boy and renowned local scoundrel. She’d been warned it would all end in tears, that Sav wasn’t the kind of guy she should hitch her wagon to. But he was handsome, funny, and just a little dangerous—she couldn’t help herself. She’d found him irresistible.

The area where they live, with their eight-month-old son Fabrizio (Fab), is largely populated by people of Italian heritage. Here, everybody knows everybody, and everyone knows everyone else’s business, too. Then, one night, everything kicks off between Risa and Sav. It’s a night that really does end in tears. There’s a death—a violent one. The repercussions will clearly be huge: everyone will know, charges will be brought, jail time will be served. Or then again, perhaps not.

This is a story about a close-knit group of people—Risa, her younger sister Giulia, and Chooch, a close friend of Sav’s—who decide they have no choice but to keep the death a secret. We track their lives over a period of eighteen years. Short periods of time are scrutinized intensely, punctuated by long stretches where we learn nothing. Is it possible for such a dark secret to remain hidden from prying eyes all this time? There are certainly those who have suspicions, but suspicions are all they have.

As time passes, the focus of the narrative shifts. Sometimes it centers on the three central characters (four as Fab grows into adulthood). At other times, it turns to others connected to this small group: friends and relatives of Sav, people with some skin in the game.

The gaps in the timeline created by the author are holes that are not filled. We don’t know what happens during those periods—we’re not told. We can only observe the actions and discussions in the here and now, piecing together what we might have missed. Initially frustrating, it soon becomes apparent that this clever construction allows the tale to renew itself, with new elements coming into play. Each section contains a twist—a truly stunning surprise. The story moves forward, but now nudged in a subtly different direction.

The overall mood is certainly melancholy—one might even say gloomy. There’s a distinct lack of good news here. Yet, the changes brought by time and circumstance make it anything but a dispiriting read. In fact, I believe it to be quite the opposite. It’s a surprising and, at times, thrilling ride through a large chunk of these people’s lives—lives lived in a near-constant state of pretense, with the fear of discovery always lurking in the background.

How you feel about the main protagonists might change along the way—it did for me. So, too, might the way you hope the endgame plays out. It’s a shocking, surprising, and thought-provoking tale that will likely stay with readers long after they turn the final page.