Saint Mazie : A Novel

Set in the Lower East Side during the Great Depression, this charming historical novel celebrates a movie theater owners transformation into the defining voice of her neighborhood.

Meet Mazie Phillips: big-hearted and bawdy, shes the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. Its the Jazz Age, with romance and booze aplentyeven when Prohibition kicks inand Mazie never turns down a night on the town. But her high spirits mask a childhood rooted in poverty, and her diary, always close at hand, holds her dearest secrets.

When the Great Depression hits, Mazies life is on the brink of transformation. Addicts and bums roam the Bowery; homelessness is rampant. If Mazie wont help them, then who? When she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, this ticket taking, fun-time girl becomes the beating heart of the Lower East Side, and in defining one neighborhood helps define the city.

Then, more than ninety years after Mazie began her diary, its discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life.

Inspired by the life of a woman who was profiled in Joseph Mitchells classic Up in the Old Hotel, Saint Mazie is infused with Jami Attenbergs signature wit, bravery, and heart. Mazies rise to sainthoodand her irrepressible spiritis unforgettable.