Liars and Saints - Softcover

Meloy, Maile

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719566452 ISBN 13: 9780719566455

Publisher: John Murray Pubs Ltd, 2004

Synopsis

Book by Meloy, Maile

About this title

Review:

Opening with a wedding and ending with a funeral, Maile Meloy stuffs everything imaginable in between, and manages to maintain a cool, elegant prose style throughout. Liars and Saints, Meloy's debut novel, following her story collection Half in Love, chronicles the life of the Santerre family, who sin with the gusto of true Catholics. Written in a series of short story-like vignettes, the family's saga is told in turn by every member, from Yvette the matriarch down to T.J., her great-grandson. We start out with a relatively run of the mill family secret, when in the 1950s Yvette sends daughter Margot off to a French convent for the duration of her teenage pregnancy. As the decades pass, the transgressions become wilder and more melodramatic, as if the Santerres are trying to keep up with the times by way of their naughty acts. What makes the novel work is that all the while, Meloy maintains a quiet, slightly wry tone: illicit lovemaking and bloody mary mixing are recounted with the same equanimity. She also gets just right the tone of each era. When Yvette's other daughter Clarissa marries a jolly lawyer in the early 60s, he sends a telegram to Yvette: "HITCHED. THANKS FOR BEAUTIFUL DAUGHER. PROGENY PROMISED TO POPE." Likewise, in the 1970s the characters talk just groovy enough, and the 80s have a wised-up ring to them. Most multi-generational sagas are dull forays into sentimentalism, but in the aptly titled Liars and Saints, Meloy has written a corker. --Claire Dederer

About the Author:

Maile Meloy lives in California. On publication in the US, Liars and Saints drew acclaim from readers and reviewers across the country. This is Maile Meloy's first novel. Her second novel, A FAMILY DAUGHTER, was published in February 2006, and her collection of short stories, HALF IN LOVE, in March 2005, both by John Murray.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray Pubs Ltd
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0719566452
• ISBN 13: 9780719566455
• Binding: Paperback