Perhaps one of my favorite aspects of this admirable book is that it comes from the life and stories of the author’s late mother-in-law, Frances Ponzo Metro. Both Frankie and Pearl’s stories are mysteries, which come together at the end in a surprising way. The other story is that of the narrator Pearl who we eventually discover died during World War I. There’s a promise to fetch them, but years pass, Frankie falls in love, her young soldier marches off to World War II, and when will her father return for them? But maybe the orphanage is a safer place to grow up than in her family home, where she appears to be worthless enough to be discarded. He announces that he will take her older brothers and his new family to Colorado where he will start anew as a cobbler for miners-leaving Frankie and Toni behind. Not until her father arrives with a meatball sandwich for his four children, and a new wife and her children in tow.
Daily.īut nothing is going to keep Frankie down-not even her annoying younger sister Toni. Sister George, wakes many a girl by hefting her mattress and spilling her to the floor. Or maybe they’re cruel for some other reason. Frankie, curious about her young womanhood, irritates many of the nuns, who, out of fear, behave cruelly to their pubescent charges. The orphanage is Catholic which plays heavily into the story. If I weren’t already hooked by the ghost-narrator, the mystery, wildness, and subtle delicacy would draw me right in. Then Frankie hears a fox cry in the distance.
Likening her to an abalone cup, the narrating ghost says, “Frankie traced the pearlescent edge of the shell with her finger,” observes that it still wasn’t broken, and neither was Frankie. The writing is lyrical only when it needs to be-such as the opening. The narrator is a deceased young woman-a ghost-who is able to see what just about everyone and anyone is doing-or thinking. Set in late Depression era in Chicago, we see all of society struggling in this National Book Award finalist. When their mother dies, Frankie and her siblings are sent to an orphanage until their Italian immigrant father can pull himself together and provide for them in Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All (Balzer & Bray 2019) by Laura Ruby.
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