The Virgin Knows

Loss of innocence, personal and sexual, is the theme of this offbeat, beautifully written first novel, which lurches from ribald farce to paranormal phenomena to a touching portrayal of immigrants oscillating between Americanization and Old World ways. Pious, fat, socially awkward Alicia Barzini, an operating-room nurse gifted with psychic abilities, envies her carefree twin Carlo, who emigrates to Boston's North End at age 17 in 1960, leaving her in Subiaco, Italy, to care for their elderly parents. Alicia clairvoyantly spies on her brother, projecting her senses into his mind so that she can share his experiences. In the late 1970s, after their parents die, Alicia moves to Boston, determined to straighten out Carlo's life. A lonely, unhappy virgin who clings to her religiosity, she views her brother as a sinner and heathen, but is jealous of his success as an entrepreneur and of his love life as the unmarried father of twin girls. When Alicia discovers that a band of Italian-American thieves, abetted by Carlos's office manager, is smuggling religious art back to its native Italy, she sets things right-and loses her virginity-in a wild plot involving kidnapping, murder, an unscrupulous Vatican cardinal and a romance with a fallen priest. Though only fitfully risible as a broad operatic comedy, this magical-realist debut novel is moving and compulsively readable. (July)