Household Saints takes place in 1950s Little Italy. The first line states that local butcher Joseph Santangelo has just won himself a wife from Lino Falconetti during a late night pinochle game. From here we’re introduced to Catherine Falconetti, Lino’s naïve 17 year old daughter and Joseph’s future wife. The courtship, if you could call it that is whirlwind and the reader is quickly immersed in the daily lives of the Santagelo’s, including Joseph’s superstitious mother Carmela. Carmela keeps an altar to the saints in the living room and frequently talks with the ghost of her late husband Zio. After Carmela's death, Catherine remakes their tiny apartment into a modern American home and vows to raise her daughter Theresa the same, modern way. As Theresa grows, it becomes clear that Carmela’s old fashioned Catholic legacy is alive and well in Theresa, who dreams of becoming a canonized saint.

This is a novel written in two parts. The first half deals with the early years of the marriage of Joseph and Catherine. The second half speeds through important moments in the life of Theresa through age 20. Personally, I enjoyed the first half much more than the second half. Joseph and Catherine are more engaging and even with some tragedy the tone of this half stays light if slightly eccentric. Theresa’s life is told more in the tone of magical realism and I had difficulty understanding some of her motivations and thought processes. Even with the drawbacks that arise near the end, this book is still worth the time. It’s only 225 pages and the pacing is such that you’ll get to the end and it will feel like a blur. It was also quite fun to be immersed in the era and mindset of 1950s little Italy and all the cultural mores that existed in that time. ( )