Overview

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2017 This year's best book about family. --Ron Charles, The Washington Post A 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.

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9781524781484

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Reviews

This year's best book about family... Elegant... Captivating... A quiet masterpiece. 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. To read this engrossing novel is to become invested in these 'entirely resilient and impossibly fragile' people. It's a story that draws us deep into the essential qualities of motherhood and the compensations of faith. --Ron Charles, The Washington Post <p/> A blockbuster...An engrossing family drama with feisty humor and transformative tough love. --Elle <p/> Sullivan writes beautifully of the nuances and misunderstandings that can tear at a family's fabric, and the love that can mend. --Steph Opitz, Marie Claire <p/> Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other. --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's 26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring <p/> What a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved this family, recognized them, cheered them on and cried for them. Like the very best novels of our time, Saints for All Occasions will engage both your head and your heart. --Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Identicals

Fabulous and smart. --Emma Straub, The New York Times Moving... Eloquently testifies to the durability of the fabric of family... Touched with... warmth, kindness and gentle wisdom. --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal 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 This year's best book about family... Elegant... Captivating... A quiet masterpiece. 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. To read this engrossing novel is to become invested in these 'entirely resilient and impossibly fragile' people. It's a story that draws us deep into the essential qualities of motherhood and the compensations of faith. --Ron Charles, The Washington Post A blockbuster...An engrossing family drama with feisty humor and transformative tough love. --Elle Sullivan writes beautifully of the nuances and misunderstandings that can tear at a family's fabric, and the love that can mend. --Steph Opitz, Marie Claire Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other. --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's 26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring What a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved this family, recognized them, cheered them on and cried for them. Like the very best novels of our time, Saints for All Occasions will engage both your head and your heart. --Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Identicals What a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved this family, recognized them, cheered them on and cried for them. Like the very best novels of our time, Saints for All Occasions will engage both your head and your heart. --Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Identicals Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other. --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's 26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring Sullivan once again expertly delivers a messy and complicated family story with sharp yet sympathetic writing. --Magan Szwarek, Booklist Sullivan has a gift for capturing complicated sibling dynamics, especially in a family ruled by Catholic repression... A satisfying... rich, well-crafted story. -Publishers Weekly Of Catholic guilt, silences, and secrets: an expertly spun family drama... Sullivan is a master at making a sideways glance or a revealed detail add to a larger picture that she takes her time in building, one that might just as easily bear as its title a wise remark in passing: 'Loving and knowing weren't the same.' --Kirkus Here to fill the Brooklyn-sized hole in your heart is the story of sisters Nora and Theresa Flynn, Irish Catholics who journey to America full of hope. --Elizabeth Logan, Glamour's Best Books to Read in 2017 -Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other.- --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's -26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring- -Sullivan once again expertly delivers a messy and complicated family story with sharp yet sympathetic writing.- --Magan Szwarek, Booklist -Sullivan has a gift for capturing complicated sibling dynamics, especially in a family ruled by Catholic repression... A satisfying... rich, well-crafted story.- -Publishers Weekly -Of Catholic guilt, silences, and secrets: an expertly spun family drama... Sullivan is a master at making a sideways glance or a revealed detail add to a larger picture that she takes her time in building, one that might just as easily bear as its title a wise remark in passing: 'Loving and knowing weren't the same.'- --Kirkus -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 -Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other.- --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's -26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring- 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 Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other. --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's 26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring

What a beautiful, beautiful book. I loved this family, recognized them, cheered them on and cried for them. Like the very best novels of our time, Saints for All Occasions will engage both your head and your heart. --Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Identicals Utterly unputdownable... A beautiful novel about family, secrets, and the ties that bind us to each other. --Brenda Janowitz, PopSugar's 26 Hot New Books You'll Want to Get Your Hands On This Spring Sullivan once again expertly delivers a messy and complicated family story with sharp yet sympathetic writing. --Magan Szwarek, Booklist Sullivan has a gift for capturing complicated sibling dynamics, especially in a family ruled by Catholic repression... A satisfying... rich, well-crafted story. -Publishers Weekly Of Catholic guilt, silences, and secrets: an expertly spun family drama... Sullivan is a master at making a sideways glance or a revealed detail add to a larger picture that she takes her time in building, one that might just as easily bear as its title a wise remark in passing: 'Loving and knowing weren't the same.' --Kirkus Here to fill the Brooklyn-sized hole in your heart is the story of sisters Nora and Theresa Flynn, Irish Catholics who journey to America full of hope. --Elizabeth Logan, Glamour's Best Books to Read in 2017

I hope to read another novel as strong and wise and beautiful and heartbreaking as J. Courtney Sullivan's <i>Saints for All Occasions</i>this year, but I'm not sure I will. <i> </i>Richard Russo

Author Information

J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels The Engagements, Maine, and Commencement. Maine was named a 2011 Time magazine Best Book of the Year and a Washington Post Notable Book. The Engagements was one of People Magazine's Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year, and has been translated into seventeen languages. She has contributed to The New York Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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