They Say

Fiction. THEY SAY is a novel about a working-class, first-generation Italian family living in the Boston area in the first half of the 20th century, centering on the family's struggles over oldest brother Louie, whose early artistic genius and political passions deteriorate into delusion and severe mental illness. Narrated by various siblings in this sprawling family, their stories have the intimacy and drama of a conversation told around the kitchen table—and like any living, breathing family tale, the brothers' and sisters' stories intersect, run parallel, contradict each other, fill in each other's gaps. Theirs are stories of love and luck, as well as poverty, death, illness, and domestic abuse.