Sacred Time

The bestselling author of Stones From the River delivers her most ambitious and dramatic novel yet -- the unforgettable story of an endearing, but flawed, Italian American family.

In December 1953 Anthony Amedeo's world is nested in his Bronx neighborhood, his parent's Studebaker, the Paradise Theater, Yankee Stadium -- and in his imaginatin, where he longs for a stencil kit to decorate the windows like all the other kids on his street. Instead, he gets a very different present: his uncle Malcolm's family.

Malcolm is in jail for stealing -- once again -- from his latest new job, and Anthony's aunt and twin cousins settle into the Amedeos' fifth floor walk-up. Sharing a room with girls is excruciating for Anthony, despite his affinity for the twins. But the real change in Anthony's life comes one evening when he causes the unthinkable to happen, changing each family member's life forever.

Evoking all the plenty and optimism of postwar America, Sacred Time spans three generations, taking us from the Bronx of the 1950s to contemporary Brooklyn. Keenly observing the dark side of family -- and its gracefulness -- Hegi has outdone herself with this captivating novel about childhood's tenderness and the landscape of loneliness.

Hegi reveals how the transforming power of a singular event can reverberate through a family for generations.