Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada paints a portrait of Williamsburg tradition and devotion that predates $30 brunches. Lifeblood of the Parish is a detailed ethnographic account of Italian American Catholicism and masculinity at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, called OLMC. Maldonado-Estrada, focusing on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Dance of the Giglio, gives readers a window into the world of male Catholic devotion in Brooklyn.

Through incredibly detailed imagery, accounts and reflections, we enter a community not just through a public-facing feast but also via planning committee meetings, church basements, money rooms, over-the-top costumes, tattoos and male kinships.