At the heart of “The Three Graces of Pearl Street” is the concept of family, as Elizabeth Wellington Rollins introduces us to the three titular Graces, the matriarch Graziella, her daughter Grace, and her granddaughter Ella, all three being Graziellas with different nicknames to differentiate them from each other. Graziella is ninety-six when the novel begins, so it’s clear she is at the end of her rather prodigious life.

The two other Graziellas are each going through difficult times. Grace’s husband Bill has asked for a divorce. They’ve lived apart for the past decade since he moved to Bermuda for his job, but Grace still had the sense of being a wife and a mother, and she loves the house that they bought with a greenhouse and plants that she lovingly tends. Ella dropped out of school, MIT, two weeks before graduation and has been working in a thrift store since. But an event at the start of the novel brings Ella a bit of fame and upends her life.

Both Grace and Ella move in with Graziella for different reasons, and it’s their time together, in the small house on Pearl Street where Graziella’s immigrant parents lived and where she was born, that causes the women, especially the younger two, to open up about their lives and their feelings. This inspiring novel is truly a paean to the strength and resilience of women as we watch the younger two Graces find their inner spirit and bloom.

Graziella the oldest is a fabulously complex character. She was a nun until she met and married her husband Frank, and although she wanted many children, she was only blessed with Grace after another baby died as an infant. Graziella is a very private person, and while she does good deeds, they are done quietly and without fanfare. She’s a bit grumpy, she’s very exacting (especially when it comes to cooking) and she’s extremely protective of Grace and Ella. But Graziella is also extremely intelligent, and while she’s very proud of her Italian heritage and culture, she embraces the new cultures in her changing neighborhood, and she is fierce when she defends new immigrants against the bigotry of others. She knows that love is important — and is accepting of love in all its permutations. She learns to work with technology in spite of her nine decades of life.

Graziella’s biggest accomplishment (which can’t be shared as it’s a spoiler) is not what she values most. Her most sacred joy in life is to help others. She accomplishes that through the food pantry she runs at her church which feeds many in their small New York neighborhood, and through the feral cat program she initiated at the local Humane Society. She feeds an old feral cat twice a day, and both Grace and Ella end up with rescued cats. As a cat rescuer and person who helps TNR (trap, neuter, return) feral cats, Graziella’s devotion to helpless cats was especially touching to me.

There’s so much to take in as we read this poignant, beautifully written novel, so much that the author has shared, from Graziella’s fight to keep organized religion from taking over her good work, to the people she connects with on a human level and whose lives she changes through her generosity. It’s the wisdom Graziella has accumulated over the near-century of living that guides Ella and Grace as they move forward in their lives. Grace has begun learning Italian, and Ella is learning to cook as Graziella teaches her the proper way to prepare the Italian food she herself lovingly prepares from her own mother’s recipes brought with her from Italy.

This novel is almost magical to read, replete with rescued cats, a food kitchen, and Graziella fighting the cold, misogynistic face of authority on behalf of those who need help and kindness. There are surprises and heart wrenching events. But this elegantly created story of three women who join together to make the world a better place is one that will make the reader feel like a better person simply for the fact of having read this extraordinary novel. I want to be more like Grace, and so will you, and the world will be a better place because of it.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.