New book a cry from the heart about roads not taken
February 28, 2025 at 11:33 a.m.
"Saint of the Narrows Street"
William Boyle, Soho Press Inc. (2025)
432 pages, $26.06
Catholic author William Boyle is a novelist who, while covering familiar ground thematically, manages to bring compelling new insights into each new release.
Boyle's most recent novel, "Saint of the Narrows Street," is just the latest example. On the surface, this is just another take on the author's Brooklyn-based ordinary John and Jane Does looking for meaning in their lives. However a more careful reading of this new offering reveals more complexity in Boyle's consideration of the vagaries of fate, circumstance and life choices.
Now residing in Oxford, Mississippi, Boyle has been described by colleagues as the "poet laureate of Brooklyn." He grew up in the Gravesend area of southwest Brooklyn and his work comes across as a nostalgic memoir of his time there.
"Saint of the Narrows Street" is his eighth full-length novel. Told over an 18-year period – 1986 to 2004 – "Saint of the Narrows Street" presents the story of a young, Church-going Brooklyn housewife whose one impulsive action to protect her baby son and younger sister from her abusive husband, Saverino, unleashes almost two decades of dissolution, replete with feelings of guilt, regret, sadness and fear.
Hoping to raise her baby son Fabiano (Fab) in a stable, secure environment, the protagonist Risa, her younger sister Giulia and selfless friend Christopher (Chooch) are forced to hide the truth about what really led to Risa's no-account husband's disappearance.
The trio's protracted effort to hide their guilty secret from Fab as he grows to young adulthood not only ends up driving mother and son apart but also sets in motion a series of events resulting in disillusionment, suffering and ultimately death.
The book's ominous tone is revealed mid-way in the story as Risa ponders the paradox of having a single, impulsive action result in the unravelling of a seemingly virtuous life. "Her whole life, she's tried to do the right thing in every situation. And look where it's gotten her. Maybe she needs to do the wrong thing more often."
As with Boyle's other seven novels, there is a strong sense of place in the "Saint of the Narrows Street." His are stories replete with streetwise, Italian-American characters who, despite flaws and rough exteriors, struggle with a Catholic faith that does not always reward those who stumble on the path to redemption.
In a 2022 discussion of faith's influence on his work, Boyle described himself as a "Catholic-haunted" writer whose fiction often reflects the ongoing struggle between faith and doubt.
The "Brooklyn-ness" of Boyle's writing is readily apparent in his new release. He once described his stories as "a Brooklyn of the soul" with a landscape of spiritual anguish.
"I'm interested in telling stories of people who feel trapped, who are searching for an identity," Boyle said. "The Church is there for many of these characters (and) there is hope to be found in their faith. It's a faith that's pure and good, and on some level at least, it's something I yearn for."
Some of his minor characters are depicted in ugly, repellant terms, evoking in the reader's imagination the coarseness and earthy crudities that crop up in the lives of people on the margins of society. And although some of Boyle's plot-sustaining devices are implausible, he manages to hold readers' attention and sense of impending doom to the very end. In the case of "Saint of the Narrows Street," the narrative action drives the sense of tension, uncertainty, wistfulness and thwarted ambition that so effectively color his stories.
Catholic readers might have qualms with the author's suggestion that humble, faith-filled lives can be so readily undone by a single mistake or a sin. As the main character Risa reveals during the story's stirring final moments, "she wants a beginning again, not an ending. She knows that no matter how hard she's tried to make life better for herself and for Fab, there's just no controlling it. If she had it all to do over, she'd release the reins. There's no key, no plan. Only the joy that's there to be held before it dissipates or decays."
The theme of losing control of our lives – or never actually having that control – echo those of other Catholic writers who recognize that there are no certainties in human life, and certainly no guarantees of happiness or simple contentment.
Mike Mastromatteo is a writer, editor and book reviewer from Toronto.
The Church needs quality Catholic journalism now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your support.
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"Saint of the Narrows Street"
William Boyle, Soho Press Inc. (2025)
432 pages, $26.06
Catholic author William Boyle is a novelist who, while covering familiar ground thematically, manages to bring compelling new insights into each new release.
Boyle's most recent novel, "Saint of the Narrows Street," is just the latest example. On the surface, this is just another take on the author's Brooklyn-based ordinary John and Jane Does looking for meaning in their lives. However a more careful reading of this new offering reveals more complexity in Boyle's consideration of the vagaries of fate, circumstance and life choices.
Now residing in Oxford, Mississippi, Boyle has been described by colleagues as the "poet laureate of Brooklyn." He grew up in the Gravesend area of southwest Brooklyn and his work comes across as a nostalgic memoir of his time there.
"Saint of the Narrows Street" is his eighth full-length novel. Told over an 18-year period – 1986 to 2004 – "Saint of the Narrows Street" presents the story of a young, Church-going Brooklyn housewife whose one impulsive action to protect her baby son and younger sister from her abusive husband, Saverino, unleashes almost two decades of dissolution, replete with feelings of guilt, regret, sadness and fear.
Hoping to raise her baby son Fabiano (Fab) in a stable, secure environment, the protagonist Risa, her younger sister Giulia and selfless friend Christopher (Chooch) are forced to hide the truth about what really led to Risa's no-account husband's disappearance.
The trio's protracted effort to hide their guilty secret from Fab as he grows to young adulthood not only ends up driving mother and son apart but also sets in motion a series of events resulting in disillusionment, suffering and ultimately death.
The book's ominous tone is revealed mid-way in the story as Risa ponders the paradox of having a single, impulsive action result in the unravelling of a seemingly virtuous life. "Her whole life, she's tried to do the right thing in every situation. And look where it's gotten her. Maybe she needs to do the wrong thing more often."
As with Boyle's other seven novels, there is a strong sense of place in the "Saint of the Narrows Street." His are stories replete with streetwise, Italian-American characters who, despite flaws and rough exteriors, struggle with a Catholic faith that does not always reward those who stumble on the path to redemption.
In a 2022 discussion of faith's influence on his work, Boyle described himself as a "Catholic-haunted" writer whose fiction often reflects the ongoing struggle between faith and doubt.
The "Brooklyn-ness" of Boyle's writing is readily apparent in his new release. He once described his stories as "a Brooklyn of the soul" with a landscape of spiritual anguish.
"I'm interested in telling stories of people who feel trapped, who are searching for an identity," Boyle said. "The Church is there for many of these characters (and) there is hope to be found in their faith. It's a faith that's pure and good, and on some level at least, it's something I yearn for."
Some of his minor characters are depicted in ugly, repellant terms, evoking in the reader's imagination the coarseness and earthy crudities that crop up in the lives of people on the margins of society. And although some of Boyle's plot-sustaining devices are implausible, he manages to hold readers' attention and sense of impending doom to the very end. In the case of "Saint of the Narrows Street," the narrative action drives the sense of tension, uncertainty, wistfulness and thwarted ambition that so effectively color his stories.
Catholic readers might have qualms with the author's suggestion that humble, faith-filled lives can be so readily undone by a single mistake or a sin. As the main character Risa reveals during the story's stirring final moments, "she wants a beginning again, not an ending. She knows that no matter how hard she's tried to make life better for herself and for Fab, there's just no controlling it. If she had it all to do over, she'd release the reins. There's no key, no plan. Only the joy that's there to be held before it dissipates or decays."
The theme of losing control of our lives – or never actually having that control – echo those of other Catholic writers who recognize that there are no certainties in human life, and certainly no guarantees of happiness or simple contentment.
Mike Mastromatteo is a writer, editor and book reviewer from Toronto.
The Church needs quality Catholic journalism now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your support.