Saints for All Occasions, J. Courtney Sullivan
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Saints for All Occasions

Narrator: Susan Denaker

Unabridged: 15 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/09/2017


Synopsis

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A New York Times Critics’ Top 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.

Author Bio

American author, J. Courtney Sullivan, has been very successful in her writing career. She has written several novels, mostly concerning the relationships among women. She is a self-proclaimed feminist, which explains her choice of themes for her books, both fiction and non-fiction. Sullivan comes from an Irish-Catholic heritage, where women identify by their middle name instead of first names. She had one piece published for Allure magazine under "Courtney Sullivan", but added the J. back in from then forward. She was raised near Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Smith College, majoring in Victorian Literature and received awards for her short stories, and for her work in Women's Studies.

Sullivan graduated from Smith in 2003, after which she moved to New York City to begin working for Allure magazine. After Allure, she worked at The New York Times for four years. Now, her work has made The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, New York Observer, Men's Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. In 2006, she wrote for the New York Times a column entitled, "Modern Love", that described her experiences in the dating world. Sounds like Sara Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw, in "Sex and the City".

Her NYT bestselling novels are: Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occassions. Her work has been celebrated with her receiving many different, prestigious literary awards. Her novel, The Engagements, is to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon and distributed by Fox 2000.

Sullivan lives with her husband and their son in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, NY.

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