A debut novel that cracks wide open the enduring conflict between group identity and individualism in America.
When powerhouse attorney Sidone Russo seeks to adopt a biracial girl from Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, she is forced to choose between her outside identity and her hidden roots in Cabrini, once a mixed-race neighborhood called Little Sicily or Little Hell. What emerges is an epic family saga and the true, untold history of Little Sicily and Cabrini-Green, a place where generations struggled through America's twentieth century by embracing racial, ethnic, and religious identities not as a matter of choice but of survival.
Caught in a conflict that has defined her family and our modern history, Sidone struggles to remain true to her individualist values. In the crosshairs lies not only her career and her
mother's deepest secret, but also the lives of her Sicilian papa, her black father, an orphaned child, and the only man she's ever loved.
Crossing Division Street is a debut that shatters the post-2020 narratives around identity in America and is an accessible work that inspires conversation and self-examination, leaving readers wrestling with one of the most historical yet urgent conflicts of our time.
