This is an interesting book, a easy read in terms of style, but one that is very thought-provoking and full of glimpses into the lives and roles of women in the the 1920's and 1950's. The Mallone (pronounced "Maloney") sisters are Mary, Helen, and Gracie, Italian orphans brought up by their tough immigrant grandmother, Anona, in the Irish Hell's Kitchen area of New York City in the 1920's. Living with Anona, who is crusty, abrasive, and wierdly spiritual, in a female-centered household, the girls grow up on the streets. Mary and Helen, the older girls, roam the neighborhood dressed as boys and working as lookouts for local mobsters during the Prohibition era. As adults they continue living on the edge. Wild Mary takes up with a mobster and Helen, widowed when her Irish husband is killed under a delivery truck, frequents lesbian bars. Always, though, they protect Gracie, the youngest, whose marriage to handsome, philandering mama's-boy Frankie Merelli teeters on the brink of collapse until Helen and Mary finally take matters into their own hands.
The four female characters in this novel are united in their strength and intense sense of family. They are passionate, loving, and living on a completely different moral plane than most of us. Ermelino does a wonderful job of bringing the Italian family and the world of Hell's Kitchen to life in vivid technicolor!
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