The Kinds of Things Saints Do

From the Anglo-American woman who makes a spectacle of herself trying to be Cuban in Miami to the estranged son leading his father on a hostile hike in New Mexico, Valeri’s characters carry a heavy load of desire and anger. Proud, loud, and hungry for whatever comes next, each person desperately searches for an understanding that lessens his or her burden. The saints here are pure only in their anger, desperation, and desire to be loved, holy only in their quest to keep going.

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Reviews

From Publisher’s Weekly

The seven stories of Valeri’s energetic debut collection range far and wide in their examination of the ins and outs of love and affection.

From Recensie(s)

The Kind of Things Saints Do is a daring and stunning debut collection. No one so young should be so brave. Laura Valeri is a virtuoso whose stories are wholly unpredictable yet completely inevitable. These tough, edgy, often unsettling tales remind us that the great appeal of fiction is the intimacy it affords us to characters’ precarious lives and to our own trembling hearts.

From Samenvatting

A startling debut collection reveals the author’s skillful blending of cultural, sexual, and stage-of-life experiences to create lyrically beautiful stories. Winner of the 2002 John Simmons Short Fiction Award. Original. (Story Collections)