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Set in California, Liars and Saints follows four generations of the Catholic Santerre family from World War II to the present, as they navigate a succession of life-altering events -- through the submerged emotion of the fifties, the recklessness and excess of the sixties and seventies, and the reckonings of the eighties and nineties. In a family driven by jealousy and propriety as much as by love, an unspoken tradition of deceit is passed from generation to generation, and fiercely protected secrets gradually drive the Santerres apart. When tragedy shatters their precarious domestic lives, it takes astonishing courage and compassion to bring them back together.
By turns funny and disturbing, irreverent and profound, Liars and Saints is a masterful display of Maile Meloy's prodigious gifts, and of her penetrating insight -- into an extraordinary American family and into the nature of human love.
Miraculously, this doesn't feel sketchy or rushed, and it doesn't boil over into soap opera. Instead, Meloy keeps the tone light and wry as she teases out the legacy of a tiny incident -- a piece of advice offered by a well-meaning but clueless priest -- that compounds over the years into a sizable quantity of lies and bad faith. — Laura Miller
Elizabeth Strout Author of Amy and Isabelle In this exquisitely rendered novel, Meloy brings her incisive intelligence to the page once again, reminding us that our actions and inactions, admissions and omissions, travel from one generation to the next, and that our past travels with us.
Maile Meloy is the author of the story collection Half in Love and the novel Liars and Saints, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize. Meloy's stories have been published in The New Yorker, and she has received The Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in California.
It was a quick wedding so Teddy could ship out, but they went two days later to a dance at the beach club, where she met Teddy's commanding officer at the bar.
"You can't leave this girl so soon," the officer said, looking at Yvette. She was wearing the ivory dress she was married in, because it had taken a long time to make it, and she wasn't going to wear it just once. It suited her, she knew - it set off her slimness and the way her dark hair curled under at her shoulders - and she blushed at how the officer looked at her.
Teddy said, "Sir?"
The officer laughed, and shook Teddy's hand again, and said congratulations on the wedding, and then Teddy was able to smile.
They both thought the CO was only joking, but he wasn't. He assigned Teddy to a squadron training at home, so he could stay a few months with Yvette. The Marine Corps put the new couple up at the Biltmore with the rest of the officers - the guests had all fled inland, afraid of bombing - and they went to cocktails and tea dances, and were together every night. By the time Teddy left to fight the Japanese, Yvette was pregnant with Margot.
She didn't tell her family about the baby right away. They were back in Canada, too expensive to call, and she didn't want to hear what they would say. Her father and brothers had said she was crazy to marry that flyboy - he was an American, even if he had a Canadian name, and he didn't speak French. They would be poor as sin on his military pay, and then Teddy would just get himself killed and leave her stranded in California with nothing - or worse, with a baby. Yvette thought they were being unfair. She couldn't please her father unless she stayed at home forever, and she couldn't do that.
With Teddy out in the Pacific, fighting in the war, she tried to read Hitler's hateful little book, to make sense of it. But the book made her angry, and she didn't see how the Japanese fit in, so she put it away. She was happiest when Teddy came home on leave, and they could go dancing and then stay up all night, in bed in the little rented apartment she'd moved to from the Biltmore. Teddy joked that sex made her talkative, instead of sleepy like normal people, but he would listen anyway, watching her and smiling in the dark. Sometimes he would kiss her in midsentence, as she told him everything she'd stored up while he was away.
And then the war was finally over, and Teddy was home for good. Little Margot was two, and the new baby, Clarissa, was almost one. Teddy took a job selling airplane parts for North American, and built a house in Hermosa Beach with a veteran's loan. When he couldn't stand the baby's crying, he pushed the bassinet out to the service porch and steered Yvette back to bed.
With a place of their own, they could invite people to it, and Yvette learned to cook for a houseful: John Wayne eggs and Bloody Marys for brunch. She made herself new dresses, and they had dancing right in the house. Cocktails started at five and the dancing went on till two or three in the morning, when Yvette would find herself singing "Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine."
Teddy didn't like to let her out of his sight, at the parties, but that was just because they'd spent so much time apart. Yvette was happy. Teddy stayed in the Reserves so he could fly once a month, and he loved those weekends in the planes. And the extra money was useful, with the girls growing out of their clothes as fast as Yvette could sew them.
Then Teddy was called to Korea, and they realized what a mistake the Reserves had been. At first Yvette thought it couldn't be true, that it must be a clerical error. Teddy had a family - Margot was seven and Clarissa was six. Clarissa's face was a little mirror of his, and she watched him in the house, staring him down. When Teddy caught her at it, he laughed, and she laughed, too. Yvette couldn't believe the Marines would ask him to leave again. But it wasn't an error, and she took the girls to see him off on the train.
At the station, two of the young Marines were joking for the crowd, making sobbing faces out the train windows, saying, "No, don't take us, we don't want to go."
Clarissa started to cry. "Why are they taking them?" she demanded. "They don't want to go!"
Yvette said the men were joking and they did want to go, but Clarissa didn't understand. She threw herself on the floor of the Plymouth, wailing, and cried all the way home. Yvette was surprised at the passion of Clarissa's grief. She thought her daughter might make herself ill, screaming so hard on the floor of the car. She didn't have time to cry herself, she was so busy tending to Clarissa.
Being at home alone with two children was harder than being first married, when the other wives had all been waiting for their husbands, too. It was busier, but it was also lonelier. Yvette couldn't entertain alone, and she wasn't invited out. A woman alone was a liability, a wild card. She didn't know any women whose husbands were in Korea; they were all younger than she. When her only single friend, Rita, got married, Yvette couldn't go to the wedding, because it was in a Protestant church. Rita was hurt by Yvette's absence, and then she was another busy wife, and Yvette didn't see her anymore.
One day, while Teddy was still in Korea, Yvette took Margot and Clarissa to the beach. While the girls were playing in the water, a man came and sat beside her. She was ready to ask him to leave, but he was polite, and they talked about the girls, and she was hungry for talk. He said he was a photographer, and offered to take their picture for her husband; he said it was the least he could do for a man who was at war. So he came to the house, with a big flash umbrella and a camera on a tripod, and set up his equipment in the living room. Yvette made him a highball, and because the bottle of ginger ale was open, she made herself one, too. On an empty stomach it went right to her head. It was three in the afternoon on a Saturday, and she'd dressed the girls up for the picture, but the photographer wasn't in any hurry. He was clean-cut with clear green eyes and looked like he could have been a soldier himself, in khaki trousers and a pressed shirt. They talked about the situation in Korea, and he told an off-color joke about war brides. He asked for another drink and she made him one, but Clarissa stalked in and said she wasn't wearing nice clothes another minute, so the photographer arranged them on the sofa and started to fiddle with his flash.
Clarissa sat on the ottoman, and Margot stood behind, with her hands on her sister's shoulders. Clarissa hated to be touched by Margot, and her hair was coming out of its curls. Yvette pulled the hem of Clarissa's skirt to cover her knees. Margot smiled serenely at the camera, and nothing about her was out of place. Yvette felt like her own smile might look tipsy, so she pressed her hand against her lips to try to straighten her mouth without smearing her lipstick. Then they all smiled and got a big flash in the eyes.
The photographer took a few more pictures and said he thought he had it, but made no move to leave. He took up his drink, and Yvette let the girls go outside. She asked if he wouldn't take payment, though there was so little money, but he refused.
"A man with such a beautiful wife will want a remembrance of her," he said.
Yvette said nothing.
"Such pretty little girls, too," he said.
Yvette agreed that the children were sweet. Then the photographer grew serious.
"You are," he said, "the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
She laughed, and tried to shake the way the whiskey was keeping a smile on her face so she could frown and send him on his way.
"I work with models," he said, still serious. "I know beautiful women. But your beauty is a radiance, it comes from within."
She wanted to tell him the radiance was from the whiskey, but she was afraid she might seem flirtatious. She thought of her father, who hadn't allowed her mother to go shopping without taking Yvette with her, in case she might be meeting men somewhere. But there had been no wars for her father, just the Depression, and the family under a tighter rein in a smaller house. And here was Teddy gone again, and this strange man who wouldn't leave.
Yvette stood from her chair to show the photographer he should leave, and then he had an arm around her waist and his lips pressed against hers. He kissed her so hard that when she twisted free, his teeth cut her lip. She sent him away then, with his camera and his flash, and did what she'd never done as a hostess: closed the door on him before he was halfway down the walk. Then she opened it again to check for the girls, and saw the photographer, flushed and angry, get into his car and drive away.
She didn't know how to tell Teddy what had happened. She tried to put it in writing but it came out wrong, and she tore the letters to pieces and started again.
The photographer came back with his prints when Yvette was alone in the house, and she opened the door just a few inches. He acted like nothing had happened, but she was cool with him. She made him turn the envelope sideways to get it through the door. It seemed better to keep the pictures than to have them out in the world. All week she had blushed when she thought of them.
"I'll get you a check," she said, when he let go of his end of the envelope.
"I don't -" he said.
She closed and locked the door, found her purse and fumbled it open, feeling her heart in her chest. Teddy's name was printed on the checks with hers. She had no idea how much to give the man. Ten dollars? She wrote the check for fifteen.
"I don't want a check," he said, when she opened the door again. He was standing in the same posture as before, a hand on the door frame to support himself. She thought he was trying to be casual, but his voice was angry, and he wouldn't look at the check she offered. "I wanted to do something nice for you, that's all," he said. "I just wanted to do something for you."
"Thank you," she said.
"I'm not a bad man," he said. "I thought we could have made each other's lives a little better, that's all. That doesn't happen very often, you know."
"I'm married," she said, and she started to close the door, but he put a hand flat against it from the outside.
"I want you to tell me something," he said. "Is it really because you're married, or is it me?"
She closed the door against the pressure of his hand, and locked it, and hung the chain. Her heart slowed as she leaned against the door. The fold of the envelope, when she opened it, was damp with the imprint of her fingers. They were good, big prints on heavy paper. The girls looked like themselves: Clarissa a mess and Margot a perfect little nun. Yvette had a wild smile on her face, her eyes too wide, but you might not notice if you didn't know she'd had a drink in the afternoon.
She didn't send the photographs to Teddy. She talked to him on the telephone when he was able to call, but she didn't tell him anything because the girls were in the room. There was no one else to tell. She had never made up with her family over their disapproval of Teddy. Her older sister, Adele, was unhappily married, and in Canada, too, and no help.
Weeks went by, and every night she lay thinking about the photographer's kiss and the blood on her lip in the mirror, and it occurred to her to go to confession. She hadn't been to Mass since Teddy left; it was too much trouble to get Clarissa into Sunday clothes. Now she thought if she could just say what had happened, she might feel better, so she went alone to a church in the city, where neither Teddy nor she would know the priest.
The smell was overwhelming, of candles and flowers and polished wood. It was the smell of every Sunday of her childhood, the old ladies speaking French to her, the priest speaking Latin, the sins she could think of: I talked back to my mother. I fought with my sister. I didn't clean my side of the room when I came home from school.
She said a little prayer outside the confessional, and then she went in, all the trumped-up sins of her childhood following her, and the little window slid open.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she said. "It has been six months since my last confession." Six months was how long Teddy had been on this tour.
"What have you done, my child?" the voice said.
"I..." She realized she didn't know what she was going to say. It had to be a confession, not an accusation of the photographer. "I tempted a man," she said.
"In what way?"
"My husband is in Korea. A man came to take a photograph of my family, to send to my husband."
"And?" the priest asked, when she didn't go on.
"I had a drink with him in my house, with my children there in the middle of the afternoon, and then he kissed me."
"In front of your children?"
"The children were outside."
"Did he only kiss you?"
"He had his arms around me. I struggled, and he cut my lip with his teeth." It was beginning to sound like an accusation. "But I tempted him, Father," she said. "I flirted with him. I shouldn't have let him come."
"What did you do after he kissed you?"
"I sent him away."
"Right away?"
"Right away," she said.
"Have you told your husband?"
"I've tried to write a letter, but it sounds wrong, and I'm afraid my husband will misunderstand."
"Is your husband a jealous man?"
"I've never tested him." She thought of her father pulling her onto his lap, asking about her shopping trips with her mother. She always knew what her mother had bought, and had been in the departments before - Kitchens and Linens and Hats - so she could describe them to him, when she had really spent the whole day reading in the bookstore on the mezzanine.
"You're afraid you might test him now," the priest said.
"He's fighting for our country. And I've allowed a man to kiss me."
"But you struggled," the priest said. "You did what you could."
"Yes," she said, grateful. The weight of the last weeks lifted from her heart. It sounded like he would take her side.
"You were lucky the man didn't do more," he said.
"I know," she said happily, full of relief.
"You must tell your husband," the priest said, and the weight dropped on her heart again. "The sin of omission is as vile between husband and wife as it is between priest and confessor."
"Yes, Father." Her moment of hope had been foolish, selfish.
"Maybe it's not wise to have men in your house," he said.
"Yes."
Continues...
Excerpted from Liars And Saints by Maile Meloy Copyright © 2003 by Maile Meloy
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
LIARS AND SAINTS by Maile Meloy
Reading Group Guide
1. How does the novel's unusual structure — alternating chapters told from many points of view — strengthen the story? Why is it so important for this particular novel that we read almost every character's point of view?
2. Do you think the novel has a main character? Is it Yvette, who hatches the plan that leads to so many family secrets? Is it Jamie, the root of his family's biggest secret? Is it Teddy, the Santerre family patriarch? Is there no main character?
3. When Yvette devises the plan to hide Margot's pregnancy, who or what do you think she is trying hardest to protect? Margot? Jamie? Teddy? Herself? Her family's reputation?
4. Discuss the importance of Catholicism in the Santerre family. Consider such things as Yvette's out-of-body experience at the convent, Abby's decision to be baptized when she learns she has cancer, T.J.'s stabbing Jamie during Mass, Jamie's and Yvette's relationship with Father Jack, and Yvette's last thoughts before she dies. How does religion positively and negatively affect the choices each character makes?
5. What is the significance of Abby's decision to be baptized in light of the role religion has played in her family's life? Discuss the parallels between her pregnancy and Margot's. How does their religion influence their situations and the way their pregnancies affect other family members?
6. Early in the novel, a priest convinces Yvette to tell Teddy that the photographer who took her portrait tried to kiss her. But she keeps the secret of Jamie's birth for decades. What made Yvette, who was compelled to confess one seemingly less significant secret, sodetermined to keep a much larger one?
7. What role does guilt play in the actions of all the characters? Consider things such as Jamie's breakup with Gail, Abby's decision to be baptized, and Margot's strained relationship with Jamie. At one point Yvette reflects on the past and thinks, "A lie wasn't terrible as long as it hurt no one, but she wasn't sure it had hurt no one. But she did know that if it was 1958 again, and Margot came to her, she would do exactly what she had done." Do you think that Yvette is easily able to live with her lies? Why?
8. Discuss the parallels between Yvette's relationship with her parents and siblings and the relationships between Yvette, Teddy and their children. How do the chapters about Yvette's mother provide insight into the incidents in the other characters' lives?
9. Discuss the theme of sex and physical attraction in the novel. How does it influence each character in life-altering ways? What decisions do the characters make that are perhaps harmful to themselves and others? In the end, are any of their decisions actually regrettable?
10. How are the members of the Santerre family affected by the various outsiders — Mr. Tucker, Gail, Lauren, Father Jack, Vera, Planchet, Owen — who pass in and out of their lives? What qualities do these supporting characters have that the Santerres lack?
11. Discuss the themes of resurrection and resilience in the novel. Consider incidents such as Margot's breakdown after Jamie confronts her, Yvette's mother's breakdown after the death of her husband, Jamie's rekindled relationship with Gail, Clarissa and Jamie's behavior after Abby's death, Yvette's death, and the family reunion at the end of the novel. What drives each character to overcome tragedy and adversity?
12. What differences between the ways males and females handle secrets are presented in the novel? Consider Teddy's attempts to tell Jamie the truth about Jamie's background, Mr. Tucker's reaction to hearing he has a son he never knew about, and Jamie's surprise at Margot's reaction when he confronts her with the truth of their shared past.
If you've read both Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter:
1. A Family Daughter presents a different version of the Santerre family's history. How do these two versions differ? What are the differences between the Liars and Saints version of the truth and the A Family Daughter version of the truth (i.e., the identity of Jamie's mother; the details of Margot's family life; the deaths of Abby, Henry, Yvette, Teddy)? What reasons do you think the author had for presenting two different versions of this core story?
2. Are some of the characters' personalities different from book to book? If so, why do you think that is? Are their personalities different because the events in their lives are different, or are the events in their lives different because their personalities are different?
3. What truths and relationships are constant between the two books? How is their constancy significant to your reading of the two books?
4. Reading the two books together raises interesting questions about the nature of "truth" and its relationship with fiction. Do you think of one of these stories as the "real" story and one as made up? If so, why do you think that is, considering that, as novels, both stories are clearly fiction? Is your answer influenced by the order in which you read the two books?
Maile Meloy is the author of the story collection Half in Love and the novel Liars and Saints, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize. Meloy's stories have been published in The New Yorker, and she has received The Paris Review's Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in California.
LIARS AND SAINTS by Maile Meloy
Reading Group Guide
1. How does the novel's unusual structure — alternating chapters told from many points of view — strengthen the story? Why is it so important for this particular novel that we read almost every character's point of view?
2. Do you think the novel has a main character? Is it Yvette, who hatches the plan that leads to so many family secrets? Is it Jamie, the root of his family's biggest secret? Is it Teddy, the Santerre family patriarch? Is there no main character?
3. When Yvette devises the plan to hide Margot's pregnancy, who or what do you think she is trying hardest to protect? Margot? Jamie? Teddy? Herself? Her family's reputation?
4. Discuss the importance of Catholicism in the Santerre family. Consider such things as Yvette's out-of-body experience at the convent, Abby's decision to be baptized when she learns she has cancer, T.J.'s stabbing Jamie during Mass, Jamie's and Yvette's relationship with Father Jack, and Yvette's last thoughts before she dies. How does religion positively and negatively affect the choices each character makes?
5. What is the significance of Abby's decision to be baptized in light of the role religion has played in her family's life? Discuss the parallels between her pregnancy and Margot's. How does their religion influence their situations and the way their pregnancies affect other family members?
6. Early in the novel, a priest convinces Yvette to tell Teddy that the photographer who took her portrait tried to kiss her. But she keeps the secret of Jamie's birth for decades. What made Yvette, who was compelled to confess one seemingly less significant secret, so determined to keep a much larger one?
7. What role does guilt play in the actions of all the characters? Consider things such as Jamie's breakup with Gail, Abby's decision to be baptized, and Margot's strained relationship with Jamie. At one point Yvette reflects on the past and thinks, "A lie wasn't terrible as long as it hurt no one, but she wasn't sure it had hurt no one. But she did know that if it was 1958 again, and Margot came to her, she would do exactly what she had done." Do you think that Yvette is easily able to live with her lies? Why?
8. Discuss the parallels between Yvette's relationship with her parents and siblings and the relationships between Yvette, Teddy and their children. How do the chapters about Yvette's mother provide insight into the incidents in the other characters' lives?
9. Discuss the theme of sex and physical attraction in the novel. How does it influence each character in life-altering ways? What decisions do the characters make that are perhaps harmful to themselves and others? In the end, are any of their decisions actually regrettable?
10. How are the members of the Santerre family affected by the various outsiders — Mr. Tucker, Gail, Lauren, Father Jack, Vera, Planchet, Owen — who pass in and out of their lives? What qualities do these supporting characters have that the Santerres lack?
11. Discuss the themes of resurrection and resilience in the novel. Consider incidents such as Margot's breakdown after Jamie confronts her, Yvette's mother's breakdown after the death of her husband, Jamie's rekindled relationship with Gail, Clarissa and Jamie's behavior after Abby's death, Yvette's death, and the family reunion at the end of the novel. What drives each character to overcome tragedy and adversity?
12. What differences between the ways males and females handle secrets are presented in the novel? Consider Teddy's attempts to tell Jamie the truth about Jamie's background, Mr. Tucker's reaction to hearing he has a son he never knew about, and Jamie's surprise at Margot's reaction when he confronts her with the truth of their shared past.
If you've read both Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter:
1. A Family Daughter presents a different version of the Santerre family's history. How do these two versions differ? What are the differences between the Liars and Saints version of the truth and the A Family Daughter version of the truth (i.e., the identity of Jamie's mother; the details of Margot's family life; the deaths of Abby, Henry, Yvette, Teddy)? What reasons do you think the author had for presenting two different versions of this core story?
2. Are some of the characters' personalities different from book to book? If so, why do you think that is? Are their personalities different because the events in their lives are different, or are the events in their lives different because their personalities are different?
3. What truths and relationships are constant between the two books? How is their constancy significant to your reading of the two books?
4. Reading the two books together raises interesting questions about the nature of "truth" and its relationship with fiction. Do you think of one of these stories as the "real" story and one as made up? If so, why do you think that is, considering that, as novels, both stories are clearly fiction? Is your answer influenced by the order in which you read the two books?
Anonymous
Posted August 3, 2009
I Also Recommend:
The first review isn't being entirely accurate. Liars and Saints reads more like a collection of short stories rather than a continuous narrative. The story spans many events over multiple generations and is told in chunks from different family members' viewpoints. That is why there are frequently large gaps in time. Normally I don't like that, but in this book you never feel like you're missing out on anything. Reading from the different family members' perspectives gives a lot of insight into the characters and lends to the overall feel of the book as a collage of stories. I liked it and would recommend but not for the average reader.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.A New York Times book review put me onto Maile Meloy. She is a keen observer of life and brings those insights to her characters. Her recently published collection of short stories is equally compelling.
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Posted July 26, 2004
This novel contains a ridiculous chain of events and character actions, most occurring without any necessary foundation to explain them. Yvette, totally disappointed in her lackluster husband steps out of the story for a while, then returns in a celebration to renew her marriage vows with this same husband saying, he was the best man for her. There is no evidence of how or why her feelings suddenly changed. Similarly, her daughter Clarissa seems to have an insatiable appetite for men, and with no provocation the reader is aware of, announces herself to be a lesbian. This is a novel where dreams are so totally accepted as precursors of events to happen within the next 24 hours, that the dreamer need not express any evident surprise when his or her dream comes to fruition. A very disappointing read.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Overview
Set in California, Liars and Saints follows four generations of the Catholic Santerre family from World War II to the present, as they navigate a succession of life-altering events -- through the submerged emotion ...