Saints and Sinners

The acclaimed new collection of short stories by award-winning author Edna O'Brien, full of her trademark lyricism, compassion and insight.
A woman walks the streets of Manhattan and contemplates with exquisite longing the precarious affair she has embarked on, amidst the grandeur and cacophony of the cityscape; a young Irish girl and her mother are thrilled to be invited to visit the glamorous Coughlan's but find - for all the promise of their green gorgette, silver shoes and fancy dinner parties - they leave disappointed; an Irishman in north London retraces his life as a young lad with his mates digging the streets and dreaming of the apocryphal gold, an outsider both in Ireland and England, yet he carries the lodestar of his native land.
A collection characterised by all of Edna O'Brien's trademark lyricism, powerful evocations of place and a glorious and an often heart-breaking grasp of people and their desires and contradictions.
Review
'Fine collection ... it is magnificent when a writer in her eighties can produce a collection of stories so sad yet so fresh and alive that you'd think their author were just setting out.' -- Sunday Times
'Extraordinary ... Saints and Sinners proves yet again that [O'Brien] is ahead of the curve.' -- Evening Standard
'Subversion is what catapulted Edna O'Brien to literary stardom an incredible half century ago and, at the top of her game, she can still cut the ground from under your feet.' -- The Times
'THE grande dame of Irish letters' latest collection of short stories - 11 pearls beautifully strung - evokes both verbally and visually the grace and fine poise of the likes of Patrick Kavanagh, whose weary stoicism finds perfect balance in writing of Ireland "it would never be spring, always autumn / After a harvest always lost." ... The lyrical and moving melancholy behind these potent themes is illuminated by O'Brien's lightness of touch. She exhibits a storyteller's memory for the small detail and a confiding narrative stride which makes for joyous reading.' --Scotland on Sunday