The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett (English) Paperback Book

Description: The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett Ann Patchetts bestselling first novel about a young pregant mother and a Kentucky home for unwed mothers FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A New York Times Notable BookAcclaimed author Ann Patchetts debut novel, hailed as "beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion" (Boston Herald)St. Elizabeths, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeths extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Roses past wont be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeths; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving. Back Cover BACK PANEL/COVER A New York Times Notable Book Author Biography ANN PATCHETT is the author of six novels, including Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. She has written for the Atlantic, Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, the Washington Post, and others. Review "A lovely, evocative tale about a beautiful mother, her abandoned daughter, the love-struck men who are devoted to them both--and the living saint who watches over them all. Maybe the Patron Saint of Liars really is a sign from God." -- Carolyn See"A delight." -- Alice McDermott, New York Times"A remarkable novel. . . . Ann Patchett is unique: a generous, fearless, and startlingly wise young writer." -- New York Times"Beautifully written . . . Ann Patchett has produced a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion." -- Boston Herald"A wonderful novel. A-" -- Entertainment Weekly Review Quote "Beautifully written...Patchett has produced a first novel that second-and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion." Excerpt from Book HABIT Two oclock in the morning, a Thursday morning, the first bit of water broke through the ground of George Clatterbucks back pasture in Habit, Kentucky, and not a living soul saw it. Spring didnt care. Water never needed anyones help to come up through the ground once it was ready. There are rivers, hundreds of them, running underground all the time, and because of this a man can say he is walking on water. This was a hot spring that had broken loose of its river to make mud in the grass, and it kept on till it was a clear pool and then a little creek, cutting out a snakes path toward the Panther River. Water will always seek out its own. George Clatterbuck found it when it was already a pretty steady stream. It was only fitting that he should be the one, seeing as how it was his land. It was 1906. He was hunting for his familys dinner. He smelled the spring before he saw it, foul and sulfurous as spoiled eggs. He thought it was a bad sign, that it meant his land was infected and spitting up bile for relief. The water was warm when he dipped in his hand, and he wiped it off against the leg of his trousers. He was thinking about it, thinking what he ought to do, when he saw a rabbit on the other side of the field. It was as big a buck as hed seen, and he knelt down slowly to get off his shot. He had to shoot on his knees. His father taught him that way because he was afraid the rifles kick would knock the boy off his feet, thought George would be safer close to the ground. But since that was the way George learned, that was the only way he could ever do it, and now here he was, grown with a family, going down on his knees like a man in prayer to shoot a rabbit. He blew the head clean off and didnt disturb the pelt. He thought he would tan the hide and give it to his daughter, June, for her birthday. June, like many little girls, was partial to soft things. By the time hed tied the legs onto his belt hed forgotten about the water altogether. It wasnt long after that times turned hard for the Clatterbucks. Both plow horses came down with colic, and Betsy, the horse George rode to town, got a ringworm thick as your thumb that no amount of gentian violet could clear. Not a week after, every last one of his cows came down with mastitis that left them all drier than bones. George had to get up every three hours in the night and bottle-feed the calves, whose crying put his wife beside herself. "Sounds like a dying child," she said, and she shivered. George didnt say this to her, but he was thinking he might have to slaughter the calves and take his losses. Bought milk was more than he could afford. Then, if he didnt have enough to worry about, the horses broke free of the corral. George took some rope and set out to bring them back, cursing the rain and the mud and the stupid animals with every step. He found them at that spring he had forgotten, drinking so deeply he thought theyd founder. He was frightened then because he thought such water would kill them, and where would the money come from to buy three new horses? But the horses were fine. Betsys hide was smooth where the ringworm had been and the other two were past their own disorder. George knew it was the spring that had done this, but he didnt know if it was the work of the Devil or the Lord. He didnt tell a soul when he drove his sick cows down to the water, but by the time they came home their udders were so full they looked like they might burst on the ground. Then little June took sick and laid in her bed like a dull penny. Doctor came from Owensboro and said it wasnt the pox or scarlet fever, but something else that was burning her alive. She was slipping away so fast you could all but see her dying right before your eyes, and there sat her parents, not a thing in the world to do. So George goes out in the middle of the night with a mason jar. He walks in the dark to the spring, fills up the jar, and heads home. He goes to his daughters room and looks at her pale face. He prays. He takes the first drink of water for himself, thinking that if it was to kill her hed best die, too. It is foul-tasting, worse even than the smell of it. He lifts up Junes head from her sweaty pillow and pours the water down her throat, the whole jarful. He only lets a little run down the sides of her face. He wonders for a moment what it would be like to feed a child from his own body as his wife had done, but the thought embarrasses him and he lets it go. The next morning June is fine, perfect, better than new. When the spring had saved his livestock, George kept it to himself, not wanting to look foolish, but when it saved his daughter he felt the call to witness. He went into the streets of Habit and told what he had seen. At first the people were slow in believing, but as hardships came to them and they went to the spring for help, all was proved true. Tales of what had happened spread by word of mouth and before long people were coming up from as far away as Mississippi. The truth was stretched out of shape through all the telling, and soon the lame showed up wanting to walk and the blind wanting to see. The spring cant do everything, the townspeople said. Its wrong to expect so much. And then one boy died right there at the waters edge. He was that sick by the time his folks brought him. Hes buried in Habit now, two hundred miles away from his own kind. One of the people who got word of the spring was a horse breeder named Lewis Nelson, who lived in Lexington. Lewis wife, Louisa, had rheumatoid arthritis and her hands froze up on her even though she was only twenty-two. They set off to Habit to see if the water couldnt do her some good. The Nelsons were rich, and when they came to town they were looking for a hotel, but there wasnt one. George had made a vow to never make a cent off the spring, and Habit said that was only fitting. So when visitors came they were taken in with charity, many times by the Clatterbucks themselves. This put the Nelsons ill at ease, since they were used to giving charity and not receiving it. June was seventeen that summer. She had grown up as well as she had started out. She was a kind of a saint in the town, the first one saved by the spring, but all that really meant to June was that there were few boys bold enough to ask her out, and the ones who did thought it would be a sin to try and kiss her. She gave up her room for Mr. and Mrs. Nelson and slept on the sofa downstairs. After her second trip to the spring the use of Louisas hands came back to her and she taught June how to cross-stitch. Her husband was full of joy. Lewis was a devout Catholic with a head for figures. He saw the hand of God in the spring and thought the thing to do would be to build a grand hotel in the back pasture. No one was ever sure how he changed George Clatterbucks mind, but probably it was by telling him that a lot more people could be saved if there was a bigger place to stay and that George was being unchristian by denying them. Its easy to imagine that Lewis had seen how well the hot-springs hotels had done in Arkansas and Tennessee and knew there was some real money to be made. Not long after that the architects came with their silver mechanical pencils, and after them the builders and the gardeners. In 1920 the Hotel Louisa opened its doors. Theyd wanted to call it the Hotel June, but June, afraid of scaring off the few dates she had left, said thank you, no. When the roses on the wallpaper were still in their first bloom and the carpet was soft and springy beneath your feet, there wasnt a hotel in the South that could match the Hotel Louisa. People came from Atlanta and Chicago and New Orleans, some to be healed but most to play tennis on the grass courts and dance in the fancy ballroom. Lewis sent for his collection of horse prints in Lexington, and Louisa picked out velvet to cover the settees for the lobby. There were two formal dining rooms where people ate with real silver and drank champagne smuggled down from Canada. At five oclock everyone went out and stood on the front porch to drink bourbon and soda. No one from Habit ever went inside after the opening day. It made them feel like they werent quite good enough. Even the Clatterbucks, who were supposed to be partners in everything, kept to the other side of the woods. You couldnt see their house, not even from the third-floor rooms. The guests never knew they had ever been there at all. The crash of the stock market in 1929 and the great drought that came over the land were so close together that it was hard to separate one from the other. Everything was coming to an end, and the spring would not except itself. Maybe there was a reason for it, that things got so hot that even the water underneath Description for Bookstore Harper Perennial Details ISBN0547520204 Author Ann Patchett Short Title PATRON ST OF LIARS Language English ISBN-10 0547520204 ISBN-13 9780547520209 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 813.54 Residence Nashville, TN, US Birth 1963 Imprint Houghton Mifflin Place of Publication Boston Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2011-04-19 NZ Release Date 2011-04-19 UK Release Date 2011-04-19 Pages 400 Publisher Cengage Learning, Inc Audience General Year 2023 Publication Date 2023-07-11 US Release Date 2023-07-11 Imprint US Harper Perennial Publisher US HarperCollins We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:36358963;

Price: 49.94 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2025-01-30T02:16:18.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 AUD