A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2017
Washington Post 10 Best Books of 2017
A Harper's Bazaar Best 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.
