Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle
“The reader will not want to put it down and will retain this story in head and heart long after the final pages are read.”
Saint of the Narrows Street will shoot an arrow through your heart as you may likely weep for the plight of the primary characters. They are Risa Franzone, her younger sister Giulia and their loyal friend Christopher “Chooch” Gardini who are at the center of a morass that threatens their very existence. Eighteen years ago, they made a hasty ill-conceived decision late one night which continues to haunt them.
Award-winning author William Boyle has returned to Gravesend, the southern Brooklyn neighborhood of his birth and youth to create a suspenseful crime novel of tragic Shakespearean proportions; a tale of broken dreams, dashed hopes, thwarted ambitions and constant sorrow.
It’s a short walk to “The Narrows” referring to the thin strait of water separating the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island that have been connected by the Verrazzano-Narrows Toll Bridge since it opened in 1964.
Over 12 million people sailed through these waters between 1892-1954 enroute to Ellis Island’s immigrant inspection and processing station. Many of the Italians who arrived from Salerno and Naples settled in Brooklyn in self-contained enclaves just like this curiously named fictional block “Saint of the Narrows Street” situated between Bath and Benson Avenues.
A Neighborhood Frozen in Time
Manhattan and the other four boroughs are but a subway ride or bridge crossing away but who ventures there from this hidebound neighborhood? An adult might distantly recall a school organized field trip to a Young People’s Concert or to a museum but Brooklyn has movie theaters, Coney Island and the Prospect Park Zoo as well as places for the young and adventurous to dance and drink. Neighborhoods where kids still play ball in the streets and jump rope on the sidewalks containing everything anyone might need with the Catholic Parish Church doubling as the community center.
Devout little old ladies congregate there in their black dresses with heads covered, rosary beads tucked in pockets, arriving for daily mass, to arrange flowers for services and to pray for the living and dead. The redolent smell of garlic, tomatoes and onions in the gravy simmering on stovetops for post-Sunday mass is embedded in the walls of the apartments and houses occupied by successive or multiple generations of family members.
Children are sent to the local public schools or to Our Lady of Perpetual Surrender, the parochial parish school that charges tuition and is taught by nuns led firmly by Sister Bernadette.
The Saint of the Narrows Street has a barbershop, a beauty parlor, mom-and- pop grocery, a meat and fish market, a bodega and two dive bars; the Crisscross and the Wrong Number. The Crisscross serves beer, boilermakers, and shots to a regular clientele of local boozers, some of whom spend their entire days and nights there. You won’t find tourists, fancy cocktails or a blender with Widow Marie behind the bar but very likely might see a busted nose or two when brawls break out.
The Wrong Number’s clientele is a mix of alkies and low level mafia foot soldiers who are occasionally enforcers conducting games of chance and taking bets in the back room. Woe betides anyone who gets too far in debt for the landfill or a watery grave are always available as the ultimate option.
The People of Gravesend
William Boyle’s Gravesend neighborhood is as crucial to the storyline as the extended cast of colorful characters. Childhood nicknames adhere to its denizens as tenaciously as reputations, be they good or bad. No one remembers when Christopher became “Chooch” but it may date back to kindergarten where he first met Sav.
There’s Double Stevie, Irish Georgie, Jane the Stain whose lack of food and daily consumption of vodka and ginger ale forecasts an early death from cirrhosis, Gilly the Gambler, Lizzie the Lezzie who is now married with children and a host of other oddly named locals. Father Tom, the young parish priest doesn’t yet have an official moniker but “skeevy” and “pervy” are often applied to this heavy drinker, gambler and would-be blackmailing man of the cloth.
Sav’s better looking and equally crooked brother Roberto caused a lasting stench when he not only robbed Jimmy Tomasullo but added insult to injury by running off to Florida with his wife. Be assured there will be consequences.
A Sisterly Bond and a Fatal Mistake
Risa and her younger sister Giulia Taverna are close despite their night-and-day different personalities. Risa was always the good girl, studious, cautious, didn’t drink or smoke and loved films and books. She imprudently married Saverio “Sav” Franzone because she thought the little punk resembled Ralph Macchio in The Outsiders.
They lived with their 8-month-old baby son Fabrizio “Fab” in one of three apartments his parents converted into rental units from their original family home before they bought a new place. Religious Pete, a sometimes-fallen AA member and prime snoop lived in another unit while the third was currently vacant. The neighborhood had always been full of “Hawks”, both men and women who observed everything and gossiped about all.
Sav was a petty hood who stole for a living, was physically abusive to Risa and cheating on her with local barfly and slut Sandra Carbonari. Four years junior to her sister, Giulia was basically a good person, who liked to party, have a good time, drank a little too much and was kicked out of the family home by their enraged father when she was 17 when caught in bed with her boyfriend. Henceforth branded as being loose although she was just a teenager in love with the good-looking Marco LaRocca who left home and became a rock star with a Hollywood starlet girlfriend. Giulia is unmarried when Saint of the Narrows Street begins and works in the office of Sid and Eddie’s Garage.
A Split-Second Decision, A Lifetime of Consequences
On a hot mid-August night, Risa was home as usual cooking dinner and taking care of Fab. Giulia had stopped by after work to visit, play with the baby and eat some of the cutlets her sister was frying to serve to Sav in the possible event he wasn’t too drunk to eat when he came home. Fresh from robbing Gilly the Gambler’s home with a couple of other goons and spitefully demolishing his prized 78 record collection in the process, Sav had arrived home with two thousand in his pocket and meanness in his eyes.
He announced he was packing his bags and leaving with Sandra who was waiting for him. Sav was even more belligerent, angrier and wilder than usual, threatening Risa and Fab with a gun before lunging at Giulia to choke the smart mouth out of her. To protect her sister and the baby, Risa swiftly grabbed the cast iron skillet used to cook the cutlets and smashed the back of his head. When Sav went down, his head hit a sharp corner of the kitchen table causing profuse bleeding. Someone less stressed and able to think more clearly would have called 911 for an ambulance and probably would have been absolved by a court of law in the event her husband died but Risa panicked.
The sisters decided instead to call Christopher “Chooch” Gardini. They’d known him all their lives as a hanger-on and friend to Sav. Chris still lived with his widowed mother and was a simple, not overly bright man who secretly worshiped Risa. He had worked as a medical file clerk since graduating high school, spent his spare time making collages out of colorful discarded magazines, listened to music and watched movies. He’d recently started collecting CD’s and DVDs. Instead of talking sense to the Taverna sisters, he helped them clean the apartment, rolled Sav into a sheet and carried him to the trunk of his mother’s car while carefully avoiding prying eyes.
They buried the body in the woods on the property his mother owned several hours from Brooklyn in the Hudson Valley. They concocted a cover story that Sav had left town abruptly. Sandra and later his brother Roberto didn’t quite buy it but in light of the recent robbery, it seemed perfectly reasonable he would disappear for a time, except he never returned.
A Story That Will Haunt You Long After the Final Page
Life goes on in Gravesend as the trio lives with guilt and remorse and Risa’s growing desire to tell the truth to her son Fab. Tension continues to mount over the next eighteen years. The close-knit Italian American neighborhood also begins some transformation with gentrification from couples who can’t afford Manhattan but want a close commute. Condos replace family homes and apartments when developers make offers too good to refuse and other immigrants begin to settle here.
Part 2 is set in 1991, Part 3 takes place in 1998 and Saint of the Narrows Street concludes in mid-summer 2004. This riveting work of fiction ascends to a crescendo like a particularly poignant and violent opera. The reader will not want to put it down and will retain this story in head and heart long after the final pages are read.
Publish Date: 2/4/2025
Genre: Crime, Fiction
Author: William Boyle
Page Count: 448 pages
Publisher: Soho Crime
ISBN: 9781641296403