Strange Saint [Hardcover]

Andrew Beahrs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2005

Orphaned as an infant by the congregation who killed her parents in a fire, Mel was adopted by the "Saints", but was made a servant. These Seperatist Congregationalists lived in isolated communities in 17th century England. We follow mel from her familiar English village in the Midlands, to the wilds of Newfoundland and New England-from passionate romance to the rawest struggle for suvival.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This engrossing historical novel, Beahrs's debut, dramatizes the experience of America's first English settlers through the eyes of a fierce young heroine who confronts both a savage new landscape and the dogmatic order of her congregation. Melode, a 17-year-old orphan, works as a servant among the Saints, a community of religious separatists in 17th-century England better known today as the Pilgrims. She falls in love with Adam Stradling, the minister's son, and follows him to America, hoping to escape her life of servitude. Once they're reunited on the westward-bound ship, however, an increasingly religious Adam rejects her. Mel takes futile revenge by seducing another man, but they are discovered and cast off the ship to fend for themselves in the wilds of Newfoundland. Along with her daughter, Mary, the result of her unfortunate dalliance, Melode is eventually rescued. She sails to Plymouth Colony, where she struggles with the community strictures, the shame of her past and the uncertainty of her future. Beahrs serves up sumptuous description and gracefully evokes the period's language with anthropological precision in this moving and enlightening revisitation of America's colonial history. (Oct.)
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About the Author

Andrew Beahrs lives and writes in Berkeley with his wife and son. Strange Saint is his first novel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 379 pages
• Publisher: The Toby Press (August 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592641245
• ISBN-13: 978-1592641246
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,320,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Beahrs is the author of two novels, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Gastronomica, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Writer's Chronicle, Ocean Magazine, Food History News, and Living Bird. He received his M.A. in anthropology/archaeology from the University of Virginia and his M.F.A. in fiction from Spalding University. He lives in California with his family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The adventures of a rebellious 17th century orphan, February 27, 2006

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strange Saint (Hardcover)

This stirring and earthy debut colorfully depicts the insularity and harshness of 17th century agrarian life from the viewpoint of Melode, a passionate and lonely 16-year-old girl. An orphan, she doesn't know who her parents were, only that they died in or fled from the tavern fire the local religious sect, the "Saints," set to drive them out when she was two. The only survivor, Melode was not adopted by the strict, dour community, but taken in as a servant.

She chafes against her lowly, outcast position in a society that claims itself egalitarian, and resentfully despises their hypocrisy, but it doesn't occur to her to renounce the only religion and community she has ever known. Where would she go? What would she do? She does her work and confines her rebellion to small things - until she falls in love and lust with Adam Stradling, son of the Saints' minister and leader and a bit of a rebel himself, who delights her with his irreverent mimicry of his father, John.

Beahrs, with a background in archaeology and anthropology, bases this community on the Plymouth Colony people, the Pilgrims, as they came to be called. Farmers (husbandmen) for the most part, they keep to themselves, shunning the world and fearful of persecution. Because they do not recognize the king as the head of their church, their religion is illegal. Within the community discipline is harsh, with the stocks employed for infractions like observing forbidden holidays or clinging to superstitions. It is a pared down religion, shorn of frills and ceremony.

But Beahrs keeps his characters human, allowing them to stray from the righteous path in one direction or another. Some, including Melode, cling to the community because it's all they know. But when their land is rented and when the owner dies and his son brings in new settlers, the Saints decide to leave behind their familiar, but no longer safe world and migrate to the New World.

John Stradling sends Adam to London to arrange passage. Although eager for the adventure, Adam promises to reunite with Melode on the ship. Naturally things do not go as smoothly as Melode hopes, but to say more would be to sacrifice some of the plot's suspense. And there is plenty of that.

Not edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting suspense, but an absorbing, character-driven desire to know what happens next. And plenty does. From stifling, smelly berths and storm-tossed leaky hulls to precarious coastal fishing camps, frightening and frightened natives, isolated bird-nesting islands and fractious, struggling settlements, the story moves through much that the journey to the New World could offer in those early days and does it well.

Beahrs has a flair for the cadence of the language. Though he readily admits that no one can know exactly what people sounded like in the early 1600s he does a good job of making the reader feel transported.

Early in the book, the young girls are raking hay:

"I slip into the rhythm of the work line. The raking is rough and tacky where the grass is cut low, tines bumping over warm earth and cropped stalks. Hay builds beneath my rake, heaping in heavy banks. I pull the wooden handle back but it's all pillowy, durable hindrance. We've missed the first cool hour, and the heat of the day is trapped beneath the layers of my clothes like flax oil. The handle is rough and unfinished, and grates against my hands. Sweat beads on my forehead."

His prose is tactile, helping us experience Melode's world, from the extreme but ordinary lack of privacy to the harangue of the meeting room, the strangeness of a new continent and the timelessness of human emotions. Well written, with a fine, melodramatic plot, "Strange Saint" is an adventure for those who like some substance to their historical novels.

--Portsmouth Herald

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transporting, July 27, 2007

By 

Oculus (San Francisco Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange Saint (Hardcover)

I am always delighted to find a work of historical fiction where the author demonstrates command not only of the facts and themes of the time, but of the metaphors and language that were used by people of that era. (The books Jem and Sam and An Instance of the Fingerpost come to mind.) The plot of this book is compelling enough, but it is the writing that is most evocative. I look forward to Beahrs' next book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Strange New World" that Beahrs uncovers, February 10, 2006

By 

James Robertson "JamesWriter" (Mobile, Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange Saint (Hardcover)

Absolutely a keeper, this book allows the reader entry into early 17th century life in England and beyond, to the New World.
Extremely well-written with a compelling narrative, Beahrs has re-created a fascinating time in history with a page-turning plot.