WINNER of two Atlantic Book Awards - the Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award
FINALIST for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour
Is it possible to redeem a family name that has been spoken as a curse word for generations?
A decade after being cast off to live with strangers, Tabby Saint returns to Solace River, Nova Scotia, to find her childhood home deserted. She quickly latches on to the lonely tavern-keeper, West, who informs her that her family was run out of town. Tabby heads out to nearby Jubilant to find the fragments of her family: her addict sister, Poppy, and her two young kids; her brothers, Bird and Jackie, one crippled by a vicious attack and the other holding a dangerous grudge against the men responsible; a threadbare version of the bulletproof mother she remembers; and an ailing father, a man so vile he is unworthy of forgiveness even on his deathbed. Irreverent and mouthy as they ever were, the Saints are still a lightning rod for trouble. When a new storm arises, Tabby must choose whether to stay or run back the way she came.
Original, gut-wrenching and incessantly hilarious, When the Saints is the story of a family of outsiders whose redemption might be found in what they longed to escape: each other.