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Look Inside | Reading Guide
Reading Guide
May 29, 2018 | ISBN 9780307949806 Buy
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9781524780227 Buy
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9780307959577 Buy
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9780307959584 Buy
May 09, 2017 | 901 Minutes Buy
Also available from:
Available from:
May 29, 2018 | ISBN 9780307949806
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9781524780227
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9780307959577
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9780307959584
May 09, 2017 | ISBN 9781524781477
901 Minutes
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2017 Washington Post 10 Best Books of 2017A Harper’s Bazaar Best Book of 2017“This year’s best book about family.” —Ron Charles, The Washington PostA sweeping, unforgettable novel from The New York Times best-selling author of Maine, about the hope, sacrifice, and love between two sisters and the secret that drives them apart.Nora and Theresa Flynn are twenty-one and seventeen when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she’s shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn’t sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan—a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand. Fifty years later, Nora is the matriarch of a big Catholic family with four grown children: John, a successful, if opportunistic, political consultant; Bridget, quietly preparing to have a baby with her girlfriend; Brian, at loose ends after a failed baseball career; and Patrick, Nora’s favorite, the beautiful boy who gives her no end of heartache. Estranged from her sister, Theresa is a cloistered nun, living in an abbey in rural Vermont. Until, after decades of silence, a sudden death forces Nora and Theresa to confront the choices they made so long ago. A graceful, supremely moving novel from one of our most beloved writers, Saints for All Occasions explores the fascinating, funny, and sometimes achingly sad ways a secret at the heart of one family both breaks them and binds them together.
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2017 “This year’s best book about family.” —Ron Charles, The Washington PostA sweeping, unforgettable novel from The New York Times best-selling author of Maine, about the hope, sacrifice, and love between two sisters and the secret that drives them apart.Nora and Theresa Flynn are twenty-one and seventeen when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she’s shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn’t sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan—a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand. Fifty years later, Nora is the matriarch of a big Catholic family with four grown children: John, a successful, if opportunistic, political consultant; Bridget, quietly preparing to have a baby with her girlfriend; Brian, at loose ends after a failed baseball career; and Patrick, Nora’s favorite, the beautiful boy who gives her no end of heartache. Estranged from her sister, Theresa is a cloistered nun, living in an abbey in rural Vermont. Until, after decades of silence, a sudden death forces Nora and Theresa to confront the choices they made so long ago. A graceful, supremely moving novel from one of our most beloved writers, Saints for All Occasions explores the fascinating, funny, and sometimes achingly sad ways a secret at the heart of one family both breaks them and binds them together.
J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occasions. Her work has been translated into 17 languages. Sullivan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Chicago… More about J. Courtney Sullivan
“Reminiscent of both Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn and Matthew Thomas’s We Are Not Ourselves… All of Sullivan’s characters leap off the page. You don’t read this book; you breathe it.” –Janet Maslin, “Times Critics’ Top Books of 2017,” The New York Times“Fabulous and smart.” —Emma Straub, The New York Times Book Review “Moving… Eloquently testifies to the durability of the fabric of family… Touched with… warmth, kindness and gentle wisdom.” —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal“All of her books are worth reading, but Sullivan’s latest, about the divergent life paths of two Irish immigrant sisters, may be her very best.”—Anna Quindlen “A breathtaking literary ode to life, change, and the unbreakable bonds of family.” —Redbook“Carefully plotted… Sullivan succeeds in creating a believably complicated, clannish Irish-American family… Engrossing.” —Suzanne Berne, The New York Times “An engrossing family drama… Sullivan’s profound understanding of her characters and the Irish-Catholic culture that defines them illuminates every scene.” —Kim Hubbard, People Magazine “This year’s best book about family… Elegant… Captivating… Deft and insightful… A quiet masterpiece…impressive. Saints for All Occasions is so unassuming that its artistry looks practically invisible. In a simple style that never commits a flutter of extravagance, Sullivan draws us into the lives of the Raffertys, and in the rare miracle of fiction makes us care about them like they were our own family.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post “A blockbuster…An engrossing family drama with feisty humor and transformative tough love.” —Elle “I hope to read another novel as strong and wise and beautiful and heartbreaking as J. Courtney Sullivan’s Saints for All Occasions this year, but I’m not sure I will.” —Richard Russo
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