Sofia Colicchio

Sofia Colicchio is one of the two main characters of the novel and forms one half of the strong female friendship that constitutes the novel’s central relationship. She is older sister to Frankie and daughter to Rosa and Joey Colicchio, the latter of which is originally in the Fianzo Italian crime family before starting his own operation in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Sofia grows up in this Italian-Irish neighborhood feeling different from her peers because of her family’s mob activities, and spends much of her childhood in isolation with only Antonia Russo as a friend.

Sofia is, from earliest childhood on, a fiery personality. One of Antonia’s earliest memories of Sofia is when Sofia tripped a boy in elementary school as a form of revenge, and the boy fell so hard on his face that a tooth went flying out. When she...