Finished by way of skimming. This felt like it was a long drawn out account of a very short story. I read to about page 81, then skipped to page 235 and finished it. Don't feel like I missed anything. It proceeds at a tortuously slow pace, back and forth in time reviewing the lives of three Italian sisters living in NYC (Hell's Kitchen maybe? Wherever the Irish immigrants congregated. The story went back and forth between the Irish and the Italian and I didn't care enough to pay attention) from the early 1920s to the 1950s. It didn't resonate with me. Perhaps it would for someone who had closer associations with the place or the people. It wasn't horrible, just a bit tedious for me. ( )