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    The Patron Saint of Liars
    The Patron Saint of Liars
    The Patron Saint of Liars
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Patron Saint of Liars

    Written by Ann Patchett

    Narrated by Julia Gibson

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    About this audiobook

    A New York Times Notable Book

    Acclaimed author Ann Patchett's debut novel, hailed as ""beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion” (Boston Herald)

    St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth’s extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose’s past won’t be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth’s; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 4, 2007
    ISBN9780061554360
    Author

    Ann Patchett

    Ann Patchett is the author of novels, most recently the #1 New York Times bestselling Tom Lake, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize in the UK, and the Book Sense Book of the Year. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. President Biden awarded her the National Humanities Medal in recognition of her contributions to American culture. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books.

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    Reviews for The Patron Saint of Liars

    4/5

    185 ratings58 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It is a nice story. And having Meryl Streep tell it to me was wonderful.
      .
    • 4/5
      I was half way through the second section before it hit me that this was a first person narration. The characters are interesting, but somewhat flat. They don't seem to know themselves well enough to tell their own stories. It is as if they are all telling someone else's story.
    • 3/5
      eh. nothing like the dutch house. not my favorite but you may like it
    • 4/5
      I loved Bel Canto and liked State of Wonder quite a bit, so I thought I'd give Patchett's debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars a try. The story is told from three perspectives. First, we meet Rose, who travels from California to a St. Elizabeth's home for unwed mothers in rural Kentucky. The presumption is that she will give her baby up for adoption and leave St. Elizabeth's when she delivers, but she meets Son, the handyman, and takes a path that is different from that taken by the other girls there. Son picks up the narrative and provides us with a different perspective on Rose and on life at St. Elizabeth's. We also learn some secrets from Son's past. And finally, Cecilia, Rose's daughter, lends her voice to the story when she's a teenager, providing yet another perspective on the tenuous ties that bind families of all sorts.Patchett has definitely developed as a novelist throughout her career. I found this story to be a bit simpler than her more recent works. But the clean language and themes match the rural Kentucky setting. The challenges that Rose and Cecilia have connecting with one another loom even larger against a backdrop of girls who have made the choice to give their babies up for adoption. And the secrets unfold at a controlled pace that provide for a very satisfying read. Patchett has also created one of my favorite minor characters in Sister Evangeline, who understands Rose and Cecilia better than they understand themselves. In all, this was an enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      Homes for unwed mothers were built on lies. Compassionate lies perhaps, but lies just the same. Ann Patchett explored the nature of these lies in "The Patron Saint of Liars," her first novel, published in 1992. Pregnant girls, usually in their teens, would come to these hideaways, have their babies after a few months, give them away for adoption and then return to their homes and schools, pretending to have just been away visiting a relative.Rose, the central character of Patchett's novel, leaves the other liars in the story in her wake. She is not unmarried like the other girls. Rather she is married to a nice, devoted man whom she has never loved. She views her pregnancy as a chain that will forever link her to Thomas Clinton. So she climbs into his car and drives from California to Habit, Ky., where a Catholic home for unwed mothers is operated in a former resort. She doesn't mention the husband she left behind.Then things really get complicated. The middle-aged handyman called Son, himself a lost soul, falls in love with this tall, pregnant beauty and suggests she marry him so they can raise her baby together. She loves Son no more than she does her other husband, but she has nowhere else to go. Besides she has been helping out the old nun who runs the kitchen and realizes the place needs her, even if they are unwilling to pay her.The first third of the novel is told from Rose's point of view. In the middle third we learn more about Son's life, how he got shot in basic training before he would even get to a World War II battlefield, how the girl he loved in high school drowned and how he wound up in Habit. Cecilia, Rose and Son's now teen-age daughter, takes over in the final third, the most heart-wrenching because we see how the accumulation of lies impact the innocent. When Thomas Clinton finally tracks down Rose, the story approaches its climax.In novels about secrets and lies, we expect the truth to eventually be revealed to all. Yet in Patchett's hands, most of those secrets and lies remain in place, the lies perhaps just becoming a little whiter, a little more compassionate. This may be her first novel, but she already writes like a master.
    • 3/5
      Favorite Quotes:
      "I'm making it sound like it was easy, when in fact it was not. It was sad enough to change my life for good, to make the blood reverse the course of its flow in my veins."

      "I looked at her name for a while, tried to remember what I had been thinking that night. I loved her. I loved her even as she was swimming away from me, even as I was hating her. That's the way it is, when you love somebody your whole life. It's like a direction you go in, even when you don't want to go any more. I lay back on the blanket and closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face. I listened to the sound of the Cecilia's strokes through the water and occasionally the sound of her diving from one of the rocks and thought, she'll stay out there her whole life rather than come onto dry land with me."

      "I wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and stay there for the rest of my life. Whenever someone came by and said, Hey, Cecilia, what're you doing there in the road, I'd tell them, missing people was a full-time job, being sorry about what was gone was going to take every waking minute now, so much time and energy that I had no choice but to stay right on that spot until they all decided to come back. I meant it as a joke at first, but then I looked down at the gravel and really thought about it. I couldn't wait for them. They weren't coming back. I'd been trying all my life to figure out what was going on, with my mother, with all those girls that come and then go away. But now I wanted to forget. Right then I decided, as much as I'd wanted to know before, from here on out I didn't want to know at all."

    • 4/5
      I love anything by Ann Patchett. This is one of her earlier novels and an engaging read.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful story about the many kinds of love and the way people choose to love, set in a home for unwed mothers in rural Kentucky and centering on the enigmatic Rose and her daughter. Ann Patchett's debut.
    • 4/5
      About a home for unwed mothers and a woman and her daughter who end up living there - very well-written and a good story.
    • 3/5
      I have to give Ann Patchett credit for creating memorable story lines and characters. Rose is a young, married woman living in San Diego. When she discovers that she's pregnant, she up and leaves her husband and mother and travels to Kentucky where she becomes a resident at St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers. At St. Elizabeth, Rose starts her life over again without confiding in anyone about her past. When it gets close to her due date, Rose changes her mind and decides to keep the baby whom she names Cecilia. Rose ends up marrying (without mentioning that she is already married) the handyman at St. Elizabeth's and staying on as the cook. Ultimately her husband from San Diego tracks her down and once again Rose disappears never to return. Rose can't seem to ever truly escape her past but succeeds in abandoning and likely destroying the lives of people she touches including both of her husbands, her mother and her daughter.
    • 3/5
      Too many unanswered questions to make this a truly rewarding read for me. I didn't really understand why Rose married Thomas, why she left him, why she wanted to keep a baby whom she pretty much ignored after her birth, why she married Son, why she insisted on the name Cecilia, why she took off at the end. Although Rose and Son lived with big lies on their conscience, the lying seemed much less harmful than the leaving. And just who IS the "patron saint" of liars? I did want to keep reading, and I really loved Sister Evangeline, but it was hard to get super-enthusiastic about the other women in this story.
    • 4/5
      Reminded me of Cider House Rules. Quirky storyline. Wife leaves husband to go to home for unwed mothers where she becomes a cook. Takes place in the sixties. Mother emotionally unavailable.
    • 4/5
      This first novel from Ann Patchett begins with a lie of omission. The consequences of that lie and how the characters deal with them is at the heart of the remainder of the book. Which is laden with lies. The story is told from three perspectives: Rose, who left her husband who did not know she was pregnant and traveled from California to Kentucky to stay at a Catholic Home for Unwed mothers to deliver her child and give it up for adoption. Son, the older man who is a maintenance man for the home who eventually marries Rose and serves as a father to Rose's daughter. And Sissy - the daughter who wants a mother to love her. No one in this story really gets what they want. Actually it was the side characters that I really enjoyed in this book - a young girl whose baby dies at birth, a nun who can see the future for the unborn babes, and the other girls who wind up at St. Elizabeth's. I enjoyed the book as it was told from Rose's and even Son's perspective. I did not care for the daughter's perspective which included an ending that was too abrupt although somewhat expected. LibrarysCat
    • 4/5
      In listening to the audio version of this, as usual, I like the way Patchett writes---her main characters become visually three-dimensional as she describes them in detail, along with their evolving emotions over the span of the years involved in the story. I wanted more at the end---it just stopped short of giving a feeling that Patchett was really finished with this book. I need a sequel.....
    • 4/5
      This was a pleasurable book to read. The writing was robust and clever. I can see why Patchett has so much buzz about her right now. I found the book to be easy to read and hard to put down.

      However, keeping me from giving this one 5 looks was the character around whom all others revolved: Rose. I found her to be a bit shallow and one-dimensional. I don't think this was the intention at all, in that I believe Patchett intended this character to be complex, brooding and unpredictable. I found her to be just the opposite. Rose was fervent in her lack of feeling and emotion, running when she got the good chance, and you knew she was going to run. Toward the end of the book, I found myself wondering if perhaps the author meant to give the impression that Rose suffered from Schizoid Personality Disorder. I was never compassionate toward Rose, and perhaps that was not the point, but by the end of the book, I didn't care at all about her.

      Son, Cecilia and Sister Evangeline saved the story. They were all very compelling, complete and full characters. I felt Son's trepidation, sorry and joy. I ached for Cecilia to find her own way, first at St. Elizabeth's, then a way out of the grand hotel. Sister Evangeline was the mother/grandmother/confidant we all wish to have. The way they all interacted with Rose and because of Rose was a good tale.

      I liked this book, and will read more by this author.
    • 3/5
      The story held my interest and the way in which the story was told from three different characters' points of view worked fairly well, I think (especially since one is a self-described liar, so I couldn't help but be somewhat suspicious of her account of things). I just didn't find the writing itself all that compelling. I really enjoyed Truth and Beauty and thought the writing to be quite good in that book, but this one just kind of fell flat for me. I didn't feel as much a part of the world of the novel as I would have liked. None of the settings really pulled me in, even though setting, I thought, played an important role in the story.

      Also, I found the birth of the twins to be a little unrealistic. As I understand, when they're born without pressure from doctors, the second twin doesn't often come quite so soon after the first as it did in this novel. The progression of the mom's labor was also a little unrealistic, I thought (labor was long enough for a first-time mom, just a little too formulaic). Small point, though. I'm just picky about birth scenes in literature.

      I realize that this sounds like a bad review, and I don't mean it to. I enjoyed the book, I just think I expected more from it than it delivered. So to speak.
    • 4/5
      This book grabbed me; it was a book where the kid got to watch more tv and the dog went in the crate, because I was immersed and wanted to keep reading. Two-thirds of the way through, I would have given it 4 1/2 stars, but I found the ending unsatisfying -- in an unfinished sense, not because I disagreed with it. I wasn't looking to have things neatly tied up -- that wouldn't have been a realistic conclusion -- but I would have liked an epilogue from Rose.Patchett has a gift for portraying characters who seem real, and using small details to make them come to life. Even when you don't like her characters, you care about what happens to them.
    • 2/5
      has a great first half but then nosedives once the author tries to switch voices.
    • 4/5
      I really wanted to like this book – unwed mothers, nuns, a young woman faced with a tough decision – it all sounded great. In reality, it was a dreary story and the main character (Rose) was a bit of a train wreck. I spent most of time pitying the poor people who got in the way of Rose’s hurricane-like existence. At first I thought it was because she was young and stifled, but she didn’t really get better as she aged. I guess if you build your entire life on lies, it would be hard to get close to others because you’d be worried about being discovered. But since Rose stayed emotionally distant from people, it was the people who loved her who paid the price. Still, it was very well written – I read it one sitting. I liked that the story was told from three different perspectives - it gave me a fuller picture of the main characters. The supporting characters were great as well – particularly Sister Evangeline and the unwed mothers. I also liked the bond between Son and Sissy. It just wasn’t a cheery book to read.
    • 4/5
      Patchett's writing is at it's finest in this book!! loved it!
    • 5/5
      Not quite as good as Bel Canto, but still a really excellent book.
    • 3/5
      A home for pregnant girls; one girl stays on to marry the handyman while still married to faher of the child; an unusual storyline and unusual motivations of the main character, Rose, but still a good story.
    • 5/5
      Great story, the characters were very well developed. Excellent narration
    • 4/5
      Patchett’s first book introduces us to Rose, a married woman who decides she’s never loved her husband and she wants out. She’s pregnant, but still decides to leave her life in California behind. She takes off and ends up at St. Elizabeth's, a Catholic home for unwed mothers in Kentucky. Rose is a cold character and the first section of the book was hard for me to get into. About 1/3 of the way in we switch to a different point of view, that of the home’s handyman Son, and after that things clicked for me. By the end of the book we rotate perspective once more, seeing the world through Rose’s daughter Cecelia’s eyes. These alternative POVs made things work so much better because Rose is such an intentionally hard character to connect with. Since we started from Rose’s POV I should have understood her character better, but she kept the reader at such a distance. I loved the interaction of the women at St. Elizabeth’s. There’s such an intense bond of shared experience, almost like a summer camp on steroids. I was reminded a little bit of the scene from When She Woke in the women’s home. The women form friendships quickly because they are all pregnant and alone in the world in some way. I think what I loved about the book was the quiet rhythm that you get into without even realizing it. Not much happens, but there’s a steady flow of time, women come and go with the years and all the while Rose is a steady force, never changing. I also loved the character of Sister Evangeline, an older nun who is the only one who seems to understand Rose. BOTTOM LINE: It’s an extremely good first novel. Patchett’s gift for storytelling has clearly improved with time, but I still enjoyed this one. I also love being able to compare her early work to her later work.
    • 4/5
      When Rose Clinton becomes pregnant in the summer of 1967, she knows that without dramatic action on her part she will be locked in an unfulfilling marriage for the rest of her life. And so she leaves, heading east from her home in California to the St Elizabeth’s home for unwed mothers in rural Kentucky. This former hotel, now run by an order of nuns, is a refuge for “fallen women” who are expected to give up their newborns for adoption and then return to their former life as if they had only been away on holiday visiting relatives.Rose, too, does not plan to keep her baby. But she also knows she will not go back to California. During the course of her pregnancy, she eases into the rhythm of life at St Elizabeth’s, first helping Sister Evangeline in the kitchen and over time assuming most of the daily food service responsibilities. By the time her baby is born St Elizabeth’s is home, and Rose has found a way to make a life for herself within the social norms of the day. Some novelists might choose to end things right there. But Ann Patchett has much more in store for Rose and St Elizabeth’s over the ensuing 15 years. Rose is a strong woman, but unable to show affection let alone create and sustain intimate relationships. Only Sister Evangeline, one of the most endearing characters in this book, is able to penetrate her shell. But even so, she is unable to heal Rose’s inner wounds. And again, some novelists might have taken the storyline to a very predictable place. But in this, her 1992 debut, Ann Patchett shows signs of the brilliance that led to Bel Canto and other novels, with a surprising, emotional and satisfying resolution to Rose’s story.
    • 3/5
      Spoiler alert:Not sure how to feel about this book.The writing kept me engaged, but I just could not relate to Rose or fully understand her choices. Unlike “The Awakening,” Rose’s need to walk away seemed more pathological than an inability to conform to societal expectations. Plus she leaves the 1st time (and deeply hurts others) to end up in a 2nd loveless marriage where she proceeds to, again, walk away from everything. I feel like I invested so much time on this only to be deeply disappointed.There are some themes (sainted motherhood or sainthood itself, sacrifice) running thorough the book...for example, was the work and sacrifice she made for others payment enough? Enough to pay for her lack of attachment? For leaving? Was she punishing herself...or her mother? And if so, for what?I’m over this one.
    • 4/5
      This was a very well-written novel about a young woman who flees from her loveless marriage when finding out she's pregnant. She basically hops in the car, leaves her home in California, & drives to a home for unwed pregnant women/girls in Kentucky. It sounds fairly simple, but the story is really quite complex & moving, and despite the reader's mixed feelings about the main character of Rose, it's hard not to become emotionally involved in this book. The novel is split into three parts, each told by a different narrator, and follows the months of Rose's pregnancy, as well as several decades following. The characterization of Rose in this story is unsettling. Despite being the main character, she is someone you feel you never really get to know, deep down. However, this doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the book because it is so well written. This was actually the first Ann Patchett novel I've read, despite having some others in my TBR stack, and now I'm anxious to delve into those as well.
    • 4/5
      The novel is the author’s debut work in 1992 and reveals the quality her later works will continue. It is the story of Rose, a young woman growing up in California with her single mom in the 1960’s. Rose is close to her mother and admires her beauty and style. She has little memory of her father who died in an auto accident when she was very young. She meets a young man, Thomas Clinton, who takes interest in her and whose devotion moves Rose into marrying him. Within a year, her life with him begins to seem flat and uninspiring; he isn’t unpleasant and they don’t quarrel but Rose realizes she doesn’t love him. Rose copes with her growing unease by driving on long trips around southern California, efforts to escape her feelings without taking any overt actions to address her unhappiness. Escaping from truth will become the hallmark of her later life.Rose becomes pregnant. She cannot imagine staying with Thomas with a child entering their marriage relationship. She confides in a priest who tells her of a home for unwed mothers in Kentucky. Without telling Thomas or her mother she sets off on a cross-country road trip to St. Elizabeth’s Home for Unwed Mothers. St. Elizabeth’s has a somewhat remarkable history. In the 1920’s George Clatterbuck, a farmer, found that a natural spring had burst forth on his land. After noticing that illnesses in his stock were cured after they drank the spring water, he treated his daughter who had come down with a serious illness and said that by its power she was cured. Word spread of the water’s miraculous properties. A rich couple leased the land and built a resort spa hotel where people would come to bathe in its waters. After a time the spring dried up and the hotel fell out of fashion and closed. The property was acquired by a religious order who converted it to a home where unwed mothers came to have babies they put up for adoption. June, now an older woman, continued to live on the family homestead on the property.Rose arrives at the home and gains admission telling a lie that the baby’s father died in an auto accident. She is assigned to work in the kitchen assisting the kindly Sister Evangeline with whom she becomes very close. She also is befriended by June and visits her often. As her pregnancy progresses she sees the pain when other girls have to give up their new born infants, and she decides she won’t do it. She has become friends with the home’s maintenance man – Son – and asks him to marry her. He agrees, not knowing that Rose is already married. Son has a tattoo on his shoulder with the name Cecilia and decides to give this name to her new-born girl. Son is uneasy about this and it is revealed in a sub-plot that a girl called Cecilia was Son’s first love who drowned in the early 1940’s. Because she is now married and has been a blessing to the home’s kitchen operations Rose is allowed to stay on after the birth. She, Son and Cecilia move into a home on the grounds that Son has been fixing up. Of interest to her is the car she drove from California. While she doesn’t drive it anymore, she has kept it and has Son maintain it in working order. After some time goes by, June dies and leaves her home to Son and Rose. After a time, Rose decides that she will move alone into June’s house – just a stone’s throw from her home – and, while not alienating herself from Son – becomes distant from him. It is clear that she does not feel deeply attached to him and her response is to flee. As Cecilia grows into her teenage years the story shifts to her perspective and she resents her mother’s aloofness and appearance of not caring too much for her. It is interesting that while Rose is teaching Cecilia to drive she becomes much more open and communicative. Cecilia is very close to her father.By means of some sleuthing Thomas finds out after the many years have passed that Rose is living at St. Elizabeth’s. He writes he is going to visit, but before he arrives the prospect of confronting her earlier life motivates Rose to take off again. She uses the car to embark on another flight from the circumstances she finds herself in. She has disappeared from the truth once again. Cecilia picks up clues that Son might not be her father, but she doesn’t reach a conclusion, almost seeming to avoid this truth.This novel is as much about truth as it is about lies. Rose’s coping mechanism surely hurts others, but her story prompts us to consider how lying is related to truths held by the liar. Rose confronted truths about herself by lying to others, by running away. In a sense she seeks to be true to herself – to her disappointment in her marriage, to her desire not to give up her child – by acting dishonestly. While she might have chosen other means to deal with her unhappiness, would not denying these truths by not acting on them be, in a sense, lying to herself? How, then, should we judge the morality of lying as a means of dealing with truths about ourselves? How really is this uncommon in dealings with others? Morality aside, as a means to resolve her difficulties, lying and fleeing was not effective for Rose. By fleeing Rose does not find permanent resolution to her circumstances. Lies have consequences not only on those we lie to, but perhaps even more on the liar.
    • 4/5
      It is an interesting study of 3 main characters. Rose is a pregnant woman who leaves her husband one day and drives from California over to Kentucky to St Elizabeth's home for pregnant girls who would have their babies adopted when they're born. Nuns run this home and Rose finds solace, friendship and a mother figure with Sister Evangeline. Rose keeps all her emotions inside and doesn't say much, keeping herself detached with most other people, even the ones she loves. I think she's pretty unaware of how she's perceived by others but at the same time, she doesn't really care what they think of her.But after watching one of the girls deliver a baby at the home, she changes her mind about giving up her baby and decides to keep her daughter when she's born.A handyman at the home, Son, an ex-marine escaping from his own past, has come to love Rose's quiet fortitude and beauty. He asks her to marry him, and she agrees, sparing no consideration for her past and the fact that she's already married. He's had his share of heartache that he's not willing to share. But what he is determined to be is Rose's daughter's father.Into this family comes Cecilia, who grows up within the grounds of St Elizabeth and learns that all the girls who comes here will eventually leave one day to have their babies and not return. It's almost heartbreaking to watch the child crave her mother's attention and love and then to watch that adoration turn into teenage resentment and bewilderment as Rose remains to all extents, detached from her family.The book is divided into 3 sections, each narrated in turn by Rose, Son and Cecilia. Through them we are privy to the emotions and thoughts that they are unable or unwilling to share with others, and that helps us understand them a little better.I thought this was a good study into characters of different complexities. The lies that are told to protect oneself, and the lies told to protect others.
    • 3/5
      It's not my favorite Ann Patchett book by a long shot -- but an enjoyable and servicable read.