{"product_id":"lives-of-the-saints-isbn-9798896230281","title":"Lives of the Saints","description":"\u003cb\u003eFresh out of college in New England, a young woman returns home to New Orleans and is quickly pulled back into the city’s “wastrel-youth contingent” in this cult-classic novel of love and decadence, now with a new introduction.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNancy Lemann’s voice is one of the most unusual in American fiction, unabashedly digressive, weirdly and wonderfully confiding, as witty as it is melancholy, an endless surprise. Hers is a voice born of and at odds with her native New Orleans, a voice that takes on and wonders at the ramshackle realities not just of the deep South but of America. \u003ci\u003eLives of the Saints\u003c\/i\u003e, her first book, was a revelation of new talent. Reappearing here, several decades later, it is simply a revelation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Claude Collier made the world seem kind,” says Louise Brown, beginning a tale of Violent Love, Breakdowns, Moods, and Felonious Drunkenness that floats from one lush, green, sweltering New Orleans evening to another. When Louise returns home after four years of college in New England, she bemusedly finds herself reimmersed in New Orleans society’s “wastrel-youth contingent.” At the center of this gin-fueled hurricane is Claude Collier, rumpled, accident-prone, supremely sweet—and desperate. For Claude, Louise is his steadying focus; for Louise, Claude is the only man who can cause her heart to “break into a million pieces on the floor.”\"The virtues and morals of this Southern hothouse are as lucid as those of Jane Austen's or George Eliot's provincial outposts.\"—Krithika Varagur, \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A lovely nutty book about a lovely nutty girl . . . Hilarious, haunting, poignant.\" ―Walker Percy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Spikily comic . . . This is how Blanche DuBois talked before the lampshade was torn away and life became lit with a naked bulb.\"―James Wolcott, \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Think of \u003ci\u003eLives of the Saints\u003c\/i\u003e as a long poem―a hysterically funny poem that is also beautifully written . . . Words are slung about recklessly, piled in staggering heaps, and what emerges from them is an almost hypnotic portrait of unforgettable people in a strange and magnificent city . . . Warming and endearing, brilliant.\" ―Anne Tyler, \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nancy Lemann has taken the South away from the Sun Belters and returned it to a clutch of New Orleans natives who know how to give decadence a good name . . . If the Crescent City should find itself in the grip of a population explosion, they can blame Nancy Lemann for making her readers want to move there. I want to have a drink at that Lafayette Hotel.\" ―Florence King, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A modern Fitzgerald is launched . . . Lemann's style can manage succinctness, wit, and pathos all in the same sentence.\" ―\u003ci\u003eCleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Striking . . . richly rewarding . . . Reminiscent of the works of Eudora Welty and the late Tennessee Williams.\" ―\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Brilliant . . . Party scenes worthy of Evelyn Waugh . . . and a very funny portrait of a people and place that haven't changed much since the Civil War.\" ―\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A tremendous first novel . . . with the mysterious subtlety of great writing.\" ―\u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The author's not inconsiderable feat is the creation of a world that is simultaneously wry, absurd and moving . . . A formidable debut performance from a novelist of exceptional gifts.\" ―\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Witty, memorable, and original . . . Louise's tale of decency and self-destruction is poignant, serious, subtle. Lives of the Saints, in its flow of observations and feelings, is a superb portrait of a people whose day is not yet done.\" ―\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNancy Lemann\u003c\/b\u003e was born in New Orleans and is the author of six books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Ritz of the Bayou \u003c\/i\u003e(republished in 2026 by Hub City Press), \u003ci\u003eMalaise, \u003c\/i\u003eand, most recently, \u003ci\u003eThe Oyster Diaries \u003c\/i\u003e(published in 2026 by New York Review Books).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGeoff Dyer \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of many books. For NYRB Classics he has contributed a foreword to \u003ci\u003ePages from the Goncourt Journals \u003c\/i\u003eand has edited and introduced a selection of D.H. Lawrence's essays, \u003ci\u003eThe Bad Side of Books\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233339977957,"sku":"NP9798896230281","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9798896230281.jpg?v=1767731585","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/lives-of-the-saints-isbn-9798896230281","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}