Customer Reviews

Liars and Saints

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Although I'd read and enjoyed Maile Meloy's short story collection, Half in Love, I was skeptical that her first novel would live up to the praise lavished on it by reviewers. I was delighted to discover that the reviewers were right. This is a remarkable book. In clear, unadorned prose Meloy offers a compelling family saga that spans more than four generations, three continents and almost sixty years. And she does it all in barely more than 250 pages. If you don't read this book you will say it's impossible, but she pulls it off with grace, empathy for every one of her flawed characters and powerful insight into the human mind and heart. As a writer of fiction myself I am in awe of her talent. Like all great novels, this one has the power to transform the way you look at the world.

With a matter-of-fact, curt style of writing, Maile Meloy succintly tells the story of four generations of a catholic family from California. Despite the brevity with which she writes the novel, Meloy still manages to explore the fears, thoughts, and emotions of her characters in an insightful and intelligent manner. By covering so many generations and telling the story from each person's perspective, she allows for the reader to gain an understanding of the overall dynamic between the characters. It is an extremely engaging, easy to read story that thoughtfully explores the lives of a superficially normal but deeply complex family.

The title of my review is referencing Maile Meloy's ease at getting to the heart of an emotion without alot of wordy excess.
This is a multi-generational story of a Catholic family growing up between World War II, and present day. She jumps chapter to chapter from siblings to parents, to grandparents, and down to great grandchildren, each having their own impressively distinct voice and journey.
What's so great about this book is that it moves at such a wonderful pace leaving you with each character for just long enough, before shifting focus and making you want to find out even more about the person you just left. I just found them all fascinating and so interesting. Even the few that were slightly less developed Meloy still managed to make you feel empathically connected to. This is an emotionally honest novel with some surprising turns, and a satisfying conclusion.One of the better books I've read this year.

I devoured this book. Maile Meloy writes the best kind of domestic fiction -- an emotional page-turner in clean, unobtrusive prose. Very very well-written, with a completely compelling plot. I laughed and I cried. And I mean cried! Don't miss this novel. It's one people are going to be talking about for a long time. I'd been waiting for it ever since reading Meloy's short story collection a year ago, and some of the stories she's had in The New Yorker since then -- which I LOVED! -- but LIARS AND even surpassed my expectations. Trust me: read this book!

As a devout Catholic, I was afraid I might be offended by this book. Let me say up front, I was not. There were one or two passages that could be offensive, but they were totally in character, so I was not offended. I found the book to be complex, engaging, entertaining and gratifying. I hope Malie Meloy will write another novel, because I will definitely be reading it. The writing is intelligent and interesting, but not so lofty and cerebral that you have to "work" to get to the end of the story. The characters were so interesting and so real, that I could completely understand their motivations. Though, the story covers fifty years in the life of one family, it goes by far too quickly.

There is so much to admire and inspire in this delightful family drama. The construction is clever, the dramatic impetus original and the characters compelling. But after awhile, I tired of just what the author did so extraordinarily well - which was to compress lifetimes into paragraphs and epiphanal moments into phrases. Everything fit just so, there was nary a word out of place. For some, this would certainly be a virtue. For me, it lacked a certain quality of exploration and originality. And no character matched the depth and richness of the matriarch, Yvette.

Maile Meloy's Liars and Saints snuck up on me. It's not a brash book. It does not force you to love it. It sits quietly with its hands folded in contemplation and waits for you to find what it is within it that moves you. And when you are moved by this book,you are most certainly moved.

Told in three parts (Part I about temptation--both resisting and giving in to it, Part II about an attempt at redemption through service or sacrifice and Part III about homecoming), Liars and Saints follows the Santerre family through several generations--each of them liars and saints, keeping secrets, making sacrifices, acting out of love. It is not a book that rests on plot but more on moments--little epiphanies that each of the characters experience, revealing to each his special purpose or understanding, providing grace.

In the beginning we see this with fighter-pilot Teddy revealing his understanding in that moment before he is launched. The moments are few--as they are in life--but when they come they bring clarity to the reader as well. There is Yvette's out of body experience, Clarissa's fear that God is calling her to be a nun after she weans her baby, Abby's decision to keep the baby even though it will kill her to do so.

In the end, we have a family, torn apart and cobbled back together, revealing the truth, seeking, once again, redemption and compassion from the only people who matter, each other.

Growing up Catholic myself.......this book really spoke to me! After I read the book, I actually went back and read the first few chapters again...so that I knew I didn't miss anything about the characters. I feel in love with each character, even though they all have their own faults. The book is about about human nature and about family and how life works. There are a few twists and turns in the book but I loved each one. I was disappointed to see that Maile Meloy wrote a second book based on the characters of Liars and Saints, but that it's totally different...not a sequel to Liars and Saints.

Liars and Saints is one of the best books I've read in a long time. With spare prose, Meloy beautifully tells the story of the multigenerational Santerre family. So much family drama is packed into a short, but hard-to-put-down book. Meloy characters are lovable and the drama is told without the angst of many other (slightly dysfunctional) family sagas. I'm almost finished with it and wish it was another 100 pages! I adore it and have recommended it to everyone this summer!!

Four generations of a family in only 250 pages just doesn't work. The characters and the plot had tremendous but unrealized potential; the author just didn't flesh them out enough to make you care. I was sorry that I started the book. There were points to admire but they were completely overwhelmed and negated by the missed opportunities. This writer hasn't arrived yet and your time would be better spent elsewhere.