Saints for All Occasions

By J. Courtney Sullivan

Book 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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307959570
• ISBN13: 9780307959577
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Very engrossing read

This was a one-day read for me. Very interesting endearing characters as were all of Sullivan's books which I purchased after reading this one. I will re-read them a few times just because the characters almost feel - if not family - real friends who I care about. I would love to see sequels and even movies.