The Lost Saints of Tennessee in Bloomington, MN

"Pitch-perfect . . . In her powerful debut, Franklin-Willis expertly crafts a Southern novel that stands with genre classics like
The Prince of Tides
and
Bastard out of Carolina
. . . . A measured, slow-burning book, with complex, compelling characters and secrets. A beautiful novel from a talented new author,
The Lost Saints of Tennessee
proves that in great literature, as in life, we must always expect the unexpected."—
Bookpage
With enormous heart and dazzling agility, debut novelist Amy Franklin-Willis expertly mines the fault lines in one Southern working-class family. Driven by the soulful and intrepid voices of forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian,
journeys from the 1940s to the 1980s as it follows Zeke’s evolution from anointed son to honorable sibling to unhinged middle-aged man.
After Zeke loses his twin brother in a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce, only ghosts remain in his hometown of Clayton, Tennessee. Zeke makes the decision to leave town in a final attempt to escape his pain, puts his two treasured possessions—a childhood copy of
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and Tucker, his dead brother’s ancient dog—into his truck, and heads east. He leaves behind two young daughters