Edmund White's narrative brilliance ... give[s] us the divinely well-told tale of identical twins who set out to answer the question: Can Texas be transcended?... White's miracle is how he manages to deliver an epic that covers five decades, several precisely observed cultures and a host of indelible characters in a little under 300 pages. ... White's tale is exactly like a stroll through Le Jardin des Tuileries-if the garden had been planted with land mines instead of tulips… The rocket fuel that propels these abrupt plot twists past the slightest suspicion of implausibility is the author's trademark narrative virtuosity and high-octane erudition.” —New York Times Book Review
“The books by 80-year-old American novelist, memoirist and essayist Edmund White-honest, fierce and joyful explorations of love, sex and family-have been breaking boundaries and engaging readers for nearly 50 years. His latest whisks us from the hardscrabble Texas prairie to the streets of Paris and Columbia… a stunner about the secrets and dreams that bind two very different women.” —AARP
"Darkly whimsical…White skillfully invites readers into an organized mess of a world filled with equal parts deceit and desire. It is a world full of sinners and saints, one that asks us to question what turns some of us into one and some of us into the other." - The Associated Press
“The pagan and the saintly contend in this audacious new novel by Edmund White whose sympathy for his Texas-born characters radiates like a kind of blessing through their myriad adventures- sacred as well as secular, and always sensuously alive.” —Joyce Carol Oates
“At once funny and moving, this is a ribald novel of the miraculous-a comic but searing exploration of sin and envy.” —John Irving
"Beautiful sentences spill off the page. Readers will delight in White’s marvelous asides, characteristically exact vocabulary, and metaphors that make the reader smile… White has written a double first-person coming of age story replete with sex, dazzling wealth, secrets, and aspirations." - New York Journal of Books
"White’s 28th book wraps his renowned erudition in a package of high-spirited family weirdness and narrative fireworks. Magnifique!" - People Magazine
“In this stylish, witty novel from the esteemed author, the Crawford twins take very different turns from their East Texas upbringing: One becomes a Parisian socialite, the other a Catholic saint." - New York Post’s Required Reading
“Like a waltz that goes out of control, this is a wild, dizzying, joyful romp. A Saint from Texas is a daring and exuberant novel in the spirit of Tristram Shandy, but it is also a brilliantly observed story about how we find ourselves by losing ourselves, about family bonds and how the harm done to us can warp us into something new. I loved it.” —Ann Beattie
"A literary firecracker… A Saint From Texas does a wonderful job exploring how siblings relate to each other and how they rely on each other to navigate the world. It’s a dramatic departure from White’s previous novels, but it’s just as elegantly crafted as its predecessors. White writes with a deep empathy for his characters in prose that’s both playful and self-assured; the result is another brilliant accomplishment from one of one of the country’s most indispensable writers." - Texas Observer
“Exploring the complexities of sin, passion and love-both human and divine-Edmund White spins a tale of two Texas sisters whose destinies could not be more dissimilar… A Saint From Texas is alive with desire and rich with history, and White's love for his characters is infectious.” —Bookpage
“A mesmerizing sensual history of identical twin sisters who leave their booming Texas oil town for Paris and a Colombian convent…Bombshell revelations abound when the narrative reaches its boiling point, which White handles with aplomb. Equally tender and salacious, White's deeply satisfying character study demonstrates his profound abilities.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Steeped in White's ironic worldview… A Saint from Texas brims with wit and style. Proust meets John Irving in this grand and delightful comedy of manners.” —Kirkus, Starred Review
“Sumptuously imagined…In this gorgeously appointed novel, an elderly Texas belle who became a French baroness tells her story and that of her identical twin, whose abuse by their father set her on a spiritual path.” —Shelf Awareness
“One of our most interesting, serious, and mischievous writers.” —Lorrie Moore
“One of the three or four most virtuosic living writers of sentences in the English language.” —Dave Eggers
“Edmund White has three voices. First there is the storyteller: relaxed, conversational, an anecdotalist, an inspired flaneur. Then there is the poet: on every page there lies in wait a metaphor of startling precision, an image that holds and reattracts the eye. And then there is the laic philosopher, who observes human life from the highest attitudes, held aloft by vast infusions of erudition and experience.” —Martin Amis
“Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction "for his honest, beautifully wrought, and fiercely defiant books."” —PEN/Saul Bellow Award
★ 2020-05-19
Twin girls from Texas oil money go on to fabulous destinies.
“We moved as far away from Daddy as we could get—to Colombia in my case, to Paris in yours. Neither of us lives in our native language. I’m called Sister and you’re called Baroness. We never returned to Texas.” The National Book Foundation gave White a lifetime achievement award in 2019 and his latest book might be seen as a fun thank-you gift to readers. Though this high-spirited confection is something of a departure for an author known as a cultural critic and chronicler of contemporary gay culture, it's steeped in White’s ironic worldview and mines both his well-known obsessions (France, the French, their language) and lesser-known ones (Catholicism, convent life, the path to sainthood). And, come to think of it, there are plenty of gay and bi characters, and really eloquent descriptions of genitalia. “Our mother had named us out of a movie fan magazine, Yvonne and Yvette, but she was so ignorant she said our names “Why-Von” and “Why-Vet”…We were 14 and real Texas beauties with our blond hair, tiny ears, long legs, and high breasts, though our...mother made us cover them up with extra-large blouses." After their mother died and their father remarried, "All that changed under Bobbie Jean. She made us say our names in the proper French way and corrected our old relatives who mispronounced them—'I’m sorry,' Bobbie Jean said, 'but we’re not that country.' " By the time the girls’ story ends in far-flung corners of the globe with both high crimes and miracles to their names, they are certainly not country anymore. Narrated by Yvonne with long letters from Yvette, including cameos by Givenchy, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Bouvier, the novel brims with wit and style.
Proust meets John Irving in this grand and delightful comedy of manners.
