Saint of the Narrows Street tells the story of a family stitched together by one violent, impulsive act. As the decades-long secret begins to unravel, one Italian American family will have to bear the consequences and face each other in this thrilling  drama, a southern Brooklyn tragic opera of the highest caliber.

As a kid, William Boyle could often be found with a tape recorder in his hand, recording conversations between his family members and then transcribing them into stories or plays. Sure, the neighborhood drama was interesting, but Boyle was mostly invested in capturing the dialogue and speech patterns that defined the voice of his block in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Years later, this early practice, as well as a sharp eye for detail, has shaped William Boyle into a master of atmosphere.

Told over the course of three decades, Saint of the Narrows Street begins in 1986 Brooklyn and follows Risa Franzone who lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad seed husband Saverio and their eight-month-old son, Fabrizio. Risa is a loving mother and faithful wife, but lately her husband’s slow dive into criminality and abuse has raised concerns about her and her baby’s safety.

On the night her younger sister, Giulia, moves in with Risa to recover from a bad breakup, a fateful accident occurs. Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot. The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man’s body and go on with their lives as best they can.

Over the vast, dramatic expanse of the next eighteen years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighborhood of Gravesend as the sisters grapple with the choice they made that night, and each forges a different path when the cracks of a supposedly seamless cover-up begin to reveal themselves.

Of the vibrant characters the novel comprises, one stands out among the rest: Brooklyn itself, rendered with vivid, tactile details. Everything from the greasy chicken cutlets cooking on Risa’s stovetop to the dingy dive bar that Giulia frequents jumps off the page, fully immersing the reader in Boyle’s gritty world. The result is an operatic portrait of characters doomed to reckon with their life-altering decisions against the backdrop of their living, breathing Brooklyn neighborhood.

Available from Soho Press

William Boyle is the author of eight works of fiction set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised: Gravesend, which was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France and shortlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in the UK; Death Don’t Have No Mercy, a story collection; Everything Is Broken, published initially in France and subsequently serialized in Southwest Review; The Lonely Witness, which was nominated for the Hammett Prize and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, winner of the Prix Transfuge du meilleur polar étranger in France and an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021 and nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 2023; and, most recently, Saint of the Narrows Street. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.