J. Courtney Sullivan

presents

Saints for All Occasions:
A Novel

in conversation with MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN

This event includes a book signing

Date

May
13
Saturday
May 13, 2017
2:00 PM ET
(Doors at 1:30)

Location

Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

This event is free; no tickets are required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome New York Times bestselling novelist J. COURTNEY SULLIVAN—author of The Engagements, Maine, and Commencement—and Boston Globe "Love Letters" columnist MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN for a discussion of Sullivan's latest novel, Saints for All Occasions, a story of hope, sacrifice, and love between two sisters and the secret that drives them apart.

About Saints for All Occasions

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.

Praise

"I hope to read another novel as strong and wise and beautiful and heartbreaking as J. Courtney Sullivan's Saints for All Occasions this year, but I'm not sure I will." Richard Russo

"Of Catholic guilt, silences, and secrets: an expertly spun family drama… Sullivan is a master at making a sideways glance or a revealed detail add to a larger picture that she takes her time in building, one that might just as easily bear as its title a wise remark in passing: 'Loving and knowing weren't the same.'" —Kirkus

Meredith Goldstein
Meredith Goldstein

Meredith Goldstein

Meredith Goldstein is an advice columnist and entertainment reporter for The Boston Globe. Her advice column, Love Letters, has been a Globe favorite for more than a decade. She also hosts the Love Letters podcast; Season 4 is coming soon. Meredith’s books include her memoir, Can’t Help Myself;  the young adult novel Chemistry Lessons, about a teen who uses science to manipulate her love life; and The Singles, a novel about a group of dateless guests at a wedding. Meredith's next YA book, Things That Grow, will be released in 2021.

Cambridge Public Library
449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138

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