This novel, a NYT notable book for 2017, is about Irish Catholic nuns and women in long-ago Brooklyn. Featured are the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor. When a young, pregnant Annie's husband does the dutch act, it is the Little Sisters who come to her rescue. She goes to work at the convent's laundry and that is pretty much where young Sally is brought up. When Sally is contemplating a vocation, Sister Lucy tells her: "If we could live without suffering, we'd find no peace in heaven." Suffering, particularly a woman's in marriage, is a constant theme. Sally decides to pass on the nunnery just before she discovers that Annie's humanity doesn't fit within the strict rules of the day. And Sally's decision to help her mother is a shocking finale to this well-crafted story.
There is no exact specification of exactly when this transpired, but my guess is it is the Brooklyn of my grandparents, vague traces of which I think I remember. Annie's best-friend, Liz Tierney, wife of a doorman at the St. Francis Hotel and mother of six, makes the wittiest and most stinging observation in the book when referring to the local parish priests. "Princes of the church - spoiled children they are. The nuns keep things running."
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