Customer Reviews

Lives of the Saints (Plume)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an odd little book. While I was not "blown away" or captivated by the characters, I have been thinking about LIVES OF THE SAINTS a great deal since I finished it. Perhaps I am too practical (or too northern), but I kept wishing that Claude would get professional help. The secondary characters were fascinating and the book is well-written. I felt that Louise was a good narrator but a weak character. Byron and Mary Grace, however, were personal favorites. I highly recommend this book, but don't expect a romantic tale of lost love because I don't think that that's what this gin-soaked book was really about. Rather, I see Claude as a metaphor for the lost dreams/opportunities of the "South" wrapped in the mannerisms and odd brilliance of a gentleman. A good, thought-provoking read.

This book is beautifully written. It clearly favors slice of life scenes over linear plot. She does a wonderful job of portraying the lives of the eccentric upper class in an eccentric city (New Orleans).

I loved this book (though did have to take a leap of faith and not just get irritated by her beginning words with CAPITAL letters to give them intensity...). It reminded me of the joy I felt as an adolescent reading all the Glass stories by Salinger.

Nancy Lemann captures the rythmn and cadence of New Orleans in a marvelous first book. The dawlin' flawed hero and characters come to life with a drama that can barely be borne without your heart breaking or your stomach hurting from laughter. A delight to read and a must for anyone who has fallen in love with the French Quarter or intends to have their heart broken into a million pieces on the floor. I'm stilling searching for a novel to take its place.

There is more packed into this short novel than many writers pack into a lifetime of writing. Nancy Lehman has created a mini-masterpiece in this tale of yearning for a love that, ultimately, is never expressed to the beloved. This novel is set in New Orleans and, like the Confederacy of Dunces before it, Lives of the Saints draws the reader into a city that is so real it swirls around like the room after a good drunk. Lives of the Saints will make you gasp with delight. Read this book.

I tried to love this book. I really did. I failed. I may try again as I was left with with a certain longing to better understand it and its characters. Read this if you have the heart of a poet. Dare I say that it might appeal most to women?

Great writing made the pages of this book fly by! A slim novel with a fast, almost talkative pace, the book was as much about New Orleans and its eccentricities as it was about the two main characters. The Fiery Pantheon (her latest book) is a great read too. Long live (and long write) Nancy Lemann.

New Orleans comes to life in "Lives of the Saints," Nancy Lemann's debut novel. And the Crescent City has never seemed more appealing, with its kooky inhabitants, sleepy grandeur and disjointed, dreamlike romance. And no, for your information, there is not an actual plot.

It opens with party-girl Louise arriving at a wedding in New Orleans, and surveying the oddballs who populate it -- Grecophiles, pushy lawyers, and sexy Young Wastrels. One of the best of these is the Collier family, a dysfunctional family of oddballs who manage to keep it together. The best of these is Claude, a young ne'er-do-well who always teeters on the edge of a Breakdown. (Louise is fond of capitalization)

But months later, tragedy strikes: Claude's six-year-old brother Saint suffers a fatal fall from a tree. Since Claude was about to adopt Saint, the loss hits him hard, and he has only Louise to comfort him. Even worse, the Collier family is starting to fall apart. Will Claude manage to pull himself together, or will he suffer a terrible Breakdown?

Don't read "Lives of the Saints" expecting a nice neat novel with a beginning, a middle and an end. This is a slice-of-life novel, focusing more on feelings and experiences than in a real story. And because of Lemann's charmingly weird characters and her lush, aimless prose, it works out wonderfully.

Especially since Lemann knows how to arrange it so that it seems as if we're sampling the characters' lives. Each chapter is divided into little mini-chapters, often being one of Louise's observations. And those brief bits of dialogue and description are full of the steamy, lush, lazy feel of New Orleans. Through Lemann's eyes, it seems almost unreal.

Louise makes an excellent narrator, but she's a rather weak main character; the most compelling part of her is her love for Claude. Claude himself is stunningly realistic: He's charming, aimless, ashamed of being aimless, loving and completely kindly. Everybody knows (and loves) at least one Wastrel Youth like Claude.

And the story is peppered with all kinds of oddballs, from a little boy with an unconventional family (he regularly tells Louise about his daddy and "five wives") to Mr. Collier, who drowns his sorrows in his scholarly pursuits. The surprising thing is, no matter how obnoxious some of these people are, Lemann makes you like them just for being a part of the book.

A look at the oddballs of New Orleans, "Lives of the Saints" is bittersweet, charming and very fun book. Much like New Orleans itself.