From a folk-rock legend comes a tender, comic story of family, music, and second chances.
Mary Saint, the rule-breaking, troubled former lead singer of the almost-famous band Sliced Ham, has pretty much given up on music after the trauma of her band member and lover Garbagio's death seven years earlier. Instead, with the help of her best friend, Thaddeus, she is trying to piece her life together while making mochaccinos in San Francisco. Meanwhile, back in her hometown of Swallow, New York, her mother, Jean Saint, struggles with her own ghosts.
When Mary is invited to give a concert at her old high school, Jean is thrilled, though she's worried about what Father Benedict and her neighbors will think of songs such as "Sewer Flower" and "You're a Pig." But she soon realizes that there are going to be bigger problems when the whole town--including a discouraged teacher and a baker who's anything but sweet--gets in on the act.
Filled with characters that are wild and original, yet still familiar and warm--plus plenty of great insider winks at the music industry--Wayward Saints is a touching and hilarious look at confronting your past and going home again.
Genre: General Fiction
Mary Saint, the rule-breaking, troubled former lead singer of the almost-famous band Sliced Ham, has pretty much given up on music after the trauma of her band member and lover Garbagio's death seven years earlier. Instead, with the help of her best friend, Thaddeus, she is trying to piece her life together while making mochaccinos in San Francisco. Meanwhile, back in her hometown of Swallow, New York, her mother, Jean Saint, struggles with her own ghosts.
When Mary is invited to give a concert at her old high school, Jean is thrilled, though she's worried about what Father Benedict and her neighbors will think of songs such as "Sewer Flower" and "You're a Pig." But she soon realizes that there are going to be bigger problems when the whole town--including a discouraged teacher and a baker who's anything but sweet--gets in on the act.
Filled with characters that are wild and original, yet still familiar and warm--plus plenty of great insider winks at the music industry--Wayward Saints is a touching and hilarious look at confronting your past and going home again.
Genre: General Fiction
Praise for this book
"I'm jealous! How can it be that someone who sings like Suzzy Roche can also write this well, tell us so much not only about the music business but about the large hearts of her characters, the locales of their deepest pain and the sources of their strength? Her language is dazzling -- unpredictable, supremely funny, irreverent, and full of authority. Wayward Saints is the best and most surprising debut novel I've read since I can't remember when." - Rosellen Brown
"Not every dazzling musician has a novel in her, but Suzzy Roche, among all her other gifts, is a novelist, the genuine article. Wayward Saints is funny, smart, poignant, the prose so clear, so direct, so true. This book is a joy." - Jane Hamilton
"What do you get when you combine a town called Swallow, a family named Saint, Sliced Ham a rock band that sings songs like The Back of My Ass and Tom's Dick and Harry, the Blessed Mother, a chocolate tranny, and characters like Garbagio and Flick Zeez? A rollicking, audacious, heartwarming, funny, poignant, unforgettable debut novel by Suzzy Roche!" - Ann Hood
"If you've ever had the privilege of hearing Suzzy Roche sing, you know all about her perfect pitch, her angel's voice, her subtle wit. Her masterful debut novel Wayward Saints (Voice) mines these same prodigious gifts. When Mary Saint, a once-promising indie rocker, is invited to perform in her hometown, where her mother Jean still holds court, the two are forced into a long-deferred reckoning: with each other and with the demons of their past. This is a golden-threaded tale of redemption, of the transformative powers of art, and of the mysteries, pains and sacrifices of love." - Deborah Copaken Kogan
"As pure, as funny, as original as Roche's music... I am telling everyone to read this book." - Meg Wolitzer
"Not every dazzling musician has a novel in her, but Suzzy Roche, among all her other gifts, is a novelist, the genuine article. Wayward Saints is funny, smart, poignant, the prose so clear, so direct, so true. This book is a joy." - Jane Hamilton
"What do you get when you combine a town called Swallow, a family named Saint, Sliced Ham a rock band that sings songs like The Back of My Ass and Tom's Dick and Harry, the Blessed Mother, a chocolate tranny, and characters like Garbagio and Flick Zeez? A rollicking, audacious, heartwarming, funny, poignant, unforgettable debut novel by Suzzy Roche!" - Ann Hood
"If you've ever had the privilege of hearing Suzzy Roche sing, you know all about her perfect pitch, her angel's voice, her subtle wit. Her masterful debut novel Wayward Saints (Voice) mines these same prodigious gifts. When Mary Saint, a once-promising indie rocker, is invited to perform in her hometown, where her mother Jean still holds court, the two are forced into a long-deferred reckoning: with each other and with the demons of their past. This is a golden-threaded tale of redemption, of the transformative powers of art, and of the mysteries, pains and sacrifices of love." - Deborah Copaken Kogan
"As pure, as funny, as original as Roche's music... I am telling everyone to read this book." - Meg Wolitzer
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