A Saint from Texas

By: Edmund White

Narrated by: Barbara Barnes

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents A Saint from Texas by Edmund White, read by Barbara Barnes.

From Edmund White, a bold and sweeping new novel that traces the extraordinary fates of twin sisters, one destined for Parisian nobility and the other for Catholic sainthood.

Yvette and Yvonne Crawford are twin sisters, born on a humble patch of East Texas prairie but bound for far more dramatic and tragic fates. Just as an untold fortune of oil lies beneath their daddy’s land, both girls harbour their own secrets and dreams - ones that will carry them far from Texas and from each other. As the decades unfold, Yvonne will ascend the highest ranks of Parisian society as Yvette gives herself to a lifetime of worship and service in the streets of Jericó, Colombia. And yet, even as they remake themselves in their radically different lives, the twins find that the bonds of family and the past are unbreakable.

Spanning the 1950s to the recent past, Edmund White’s marvellous novel serves up an immensely pleasurable epic of two Texas women as their lives traverse varied worlds: the swaggering opulence of the Dallas nouveau riche, the airless pretension of the Paris gratin and the strict piety of a Colombian convent. For nearly half a century, Edmund White’s work has revitalised American literature, blithely breaking down boundaries of class and sexuality, and A Saint from Texas is one of his most joyous, gorgeously written and piercing works to date.

©2020 Edmund White (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"At once funny and moving, this is a ribald novel of the miraculous - a comic but searing exploration of sin and envy." (John Irving)

"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)

Disappointing

What started as funny lively colloquial, suddenly without any lead in, became “suave international” name dropping, lots of sex of every variety without character development.
WHY did Yvonne hate her young daughter??
Infidelity became a given while unexplained incest was casually thrown in. Then, the ending was just flat.

Wonderful writing!

Edmund White is a wonderful writer. The first third of the book was lovely and quite enjoyable. But then I got bored halfway through. I stopped caring about the characters... I stopped rooting for them. I must confess I skipped the last few chapters to see what happens because I was curious. Again, the writing is fantastic but but the characters became insufferable.

I disliked this book.

What a terrible book! It was a cursory glance at Texas, throwing out every hackneyed trope there is. There were no redeeming characters - NONE. It felt like juvenile literature. I particularly did not like the 'coming of age' descriptions of boys describing 'how many knuckles' they got up a girl! How coarse and offensive. What is particularly offensive is that I had to pay $16.80 to get this book and I can never get it back! What a waste.

OMG! I just wasted a credit that I’ll never get back

I kept hoping for something, anything to make it worth while. I’ve listened to 23 audio books. This is the first time I fast forwarded and then skipped to the last chapter to put me out of my misery.