The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiana

This was just the book I needed the week that school ended for students and teachers .... an entertaining, engaging family saga  that really constitutes "summer reading." I enjoyed reading it and found myself wanting to pick it up at all times of the day.
The story starts in Northern Italy, with two brothers being dropped off at a convent by their mother, recently widowed, because she can't take care of them herself.  They are raised by the nuns and are "good boys" but very different. One ends up in the priesthood, while the other moves to America at the turn of the century, to find his fortune (and following in the path of his lost father, who moved to America to earn money for the family, back in Italy). 

I learned later that this story was written as an homage to the author's grandparents, who met much the same way that the two main protagonists, Enza and Ciro, meet in the book.
Although the book does resort to some conventions and is predictable in many ways, I am not complaining at all. It's well written, the characters are well developed, and it weaves fact and fiction in an interesting manner.  I really do love novels that explore immigrants' experience in America and this was a version I had not read before. I have read so many about Jewish families coming to American to escape persecution, Irish families coming to escape poverty, Indian families coming for a better life...but I hadn't experienced the Italian family saga before...at least I can't recall a novel like this.