Crossing Division Street

A Novel
Four generations converge in one woman’s choice between her principles and heritage.

In July 1999, Sidone Russo, a single, high-powered attorney, is stopped at a red light in Chicagos infamous Cabrini-Green neighborhood when a little girl jumps into her car and cries, Go, Lady! They gonna kill me! Panicked, Sidone takes off with the girl crouched in the back seat, sobbing.

As the reality of the girl’s life seeps into Sidone’s independent world, Sidone is forced to confront her own identity and the hidden roots she left behind in Cabrini, once a mixed-race neighborhood called Little Sicily or Little Hell. What unfolds is an epic, 100-year family saga and the true history of Little Sicily and Cabrini-Green, a place where generations struggled through the defining events of America’s twentieth centuryfrom lynchings and riots to wars and assassinationsby embracing racial, ethnic, national, and religious identitie