Author Carolyn Angiolillo grew up on the friendly, albeit at times mean streets of the Italian section of Brooklyn known as Williamsburg. The atmosphere there in the 1950s-60s-70s steeped in the aroma of home-cooked meals, fresh foods from neighborhood shops which included garlic for the palate, and listening to Caruso and other opera singers for the hearts and minds of the locals. A Brooklyn Saga: Stories from the Stoop traces the steps of Angie Carpello as she sits on her stoop and navigates her life amongst the Italian Mafia, the dichotomies of the Roman Catholic Church, and Old World Italian culture. Little does Angie know, that as she grows up playing stickball and games like Ringolevio and Johnny-on- the-Pony with neighborhood friends, that her life will dramatically change when she meets Wengchan Liang, a hitman from mainland China.
Angiolillo and her co-author, biographer/novelist Ronald Joseph Kule, create not only a deliciously accurate portrayal of the diversities of the Williamsburg Brooklyn of her early years but also with their wild imagination and devilish and cleverly intermingled characters, a tale of international intrigue and redemption that appeals to Brooklynites, big-city dwellers, and history buffs. Italian-Americans and their elders from the Old Country lend to this read may be as much as the rich heritage they inherited.