From Publishers Weekly
In this wickedly clever debut collection, O'Connell places female saints in contemporary settings and reinterprets their stories. Sassy in tone from the opening sentence of the first story, "Saint Dymphna" ("Holy shit, thought Dymphna, The Women's Center has hired a moonie"), the collection is full of saints who are just as likely to offer up smart-mouthed remarks as they are to provide comfort. Dymphna, a Catholic school girl who has an abortion, later experiences the "true heart of another" in a surprising modern twist on her namesake saint's martyrdom. In "The Patron Saint of Girls," Saint Agnes hovers over a high school biology class and tries to explain how even in her moment of martyrdom, she was most worried about impressing a boy. Saint Catherine Laboure is a tattoo artist, and Veronica is a 34-year-old singleton in New York City. But O'Connell isn't interested in easy irreverent swipes at Catholicism; serious topics are addressed in every story teenage pregnancy and abortion, sexual abuse, debilitating illness, losing a loved one and the links between myth and life are tight and always unexpected. O'Connell has an uncanny ear for dialogue and an otherworldly communion with the hearts and minds of adolescent girls in particular. Whether offering a new version of the Immaculate Conception, testing the influence of St. Christopher on two young female travelers in 1980s London or depicting a cigarette-smoking Saint Anne offering bedside counsel to a single mother who is trying to make ends meet by sleeping with her loathsome boss, the bottom line here is an examination of faith. Traditionalists may be shocked, but everyone else (nonreligious readers included) will be delighted with these well-crafted, inventive and highly original modern-day visitations. (Oct.)Forecast: Strong reviews should move this charmer. The saint-worshiping market probably won't cross over, but those with a yen for Catholic kitsch will be delighted. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Though living in Italy and Canada may have helped Spencer shed her reputation as a regional Southern writer, her literary vision has always been free of geographical constraint. This collection offers selections from the Mississippi native's earlier short fiction together with several new stories. Best known of the earlier fiction is her stunning novella, The Light in the Piazza (1960), the deceptively simple tale of an American mother and daughter in Florence. The new stories include First Child, the misadventure of an unmarried couple and the child they take on a weekend trip, and The Weekend Travellers, a chilling tale of newlyweds who follow a Pottery sign down a deserted road, where the husband disappears. Spencer published her first story in 1944 and has since published over a dozen books of fiction; this is her first new collection in 15 years. Unlike much episodic short fiction being written today, Spencer's narratives always tell a story. In this she follows the tradition of Henry James and Katherine Mansfield, to whom she has previously been compared. For all public libraries.Mary Szczesiul, Roseville P.L., MI Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
In religious terms, saints are exemplars, sometimes intermediaries. In cultural terms, they lend texture to a society's efforts to define the meaning of holiness, "the good life," the "heroic ideal" Jungian Michael Gellert discusses in The Fate of America (see p.183 in this issue). For many Catholic girls growing up in the second half of the twentieth century, female saints were just about the only women heroes encountered. It's this context that informs O'Connell's pungent short stories. Her saints get involved in the lives of the stories' contemporary female protagonists, but they don't necessarily limit their advice to orthodox Christian doctrine. Saint Agnes, in "The Patron Saint of Girls," isn't sure waiting until marriage is such a great idea. A frazzled single mom communes with Saint Anne (in the story of the same name) about alternative ways to support her infant daughter. In "Saint Dymphna," a high-school girl named Dymphna uses her patron saint's story to negotiate an unplanned pregnancy and an all-too-public abortion. Ten tales sure to enchant some readers and enrage others. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Mary O'Connell's wonderfully inventive debut collection takes dusty icons down from the shelf and sets their spirits loose in the modern world. The result is nothing less than "an extended hagiography of the everyday ... where the sacred and secular blur gloriously into one another" (Los Angeles Times). Praised for her "gift for mordant wit, which at its best is reminiscent of Lorrie Moore" (The New York Times Book Review), O'Connell draws upon the lives of the saints to show the divine at work in even the most mundane lives. Saint Anne, patron saint of mothers, sits on the corner of a bed offering words of wisdom while a woman, driven to desperate measures to avoid leaving her baby in day care, has sex with her reptilian boss in exchange for time off. A woman left by her glam-rock musician boyfriend tosses and turns in her bed one night only to find that her pillow, stained with his mascara, has become a modern Turin shroud. From the ineffable bonds between fellow sufferers of grave illness, to the mystery of an immaculate pregnancy, to the more quotidian heartbreak of balancing work and motherhood, O'Connell's stories tackle complicated themes with humor that is "biting but never malicious" (Library Journal ). Readers of all faiths (or none) will be delighted by these savvy and highly original modern visitations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Living with Saints is a collection that takes dusty icons down from the shelf and sets their spirits loose in the modern world. Adventurous, irreverent, and intense by turns, each story portrays how the life of a female saint infuses the experiences of contemporary women. Mary O'Connell draws us into the spaces where the everyday overlaps with the everlasting." "O'Connell's literary territory owes as much to Madonna the pop star as it does to the Virgin Mary. The wise-cracking Saint Agnes, Patron Saint of Girls, delivers a disembodied running commentary to a high school class watching a video called "How Christian Girls Blossom into Maturity." Saint Anne, Patron Saint of Mothers, sits on the corner of a bed offering words of wisdom while a woman, driven to desperate measures to avoid leaving her baby in day care every day, has sex with her reptilian boss in exchange for time off. A woman whose glamrock musician boyfriend has left her tosses and turns in her bed one night, only to find that her pillow, stained with his mascara, has become a modern Turin shroud." From the ineffable bonds between fellow sufferers of grave illness, to the mystery of an immaculate pregnancy, to the more quotidian heartbreak of balancing work and motherhood, Living with Saints playfully explores the power and limitations of Catholicism with a buoyant freshness that transforms its moments of potential despair. Living with Saints is a savvy, insouciant collection of stories that will resonate with readers of all faiths (or none) for years to come.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this wickedly clever debut collection, O'Connell places female saints in contemporary settings and reinterprets their stories. Sassy in tone from the opening sentence of the first story, "Saint Dymphna" ("Holy shit, thought Dymphna, The Women's Center has hired a moonie"), the collection is full of saints who are just as likely to offer up smart-mouthed remarks as they are to provide comfort. Dymphna, a Catholic school girl who has an abortion, later experiences the "true heart of another" in a surprising modern twist on her namesake saint's martyrdom. In "The Patron Saint of Girls," Saint Agnes hovers over a high school biology class and tries to explain how even in her moment of martyrdom, she was most worried about impressing a boy. Saint Catherine Laboure is a tattoo artist, and Veronica is a 34-year-old singleton in New York City. But O'Connell isn't interested in easy irreverent swipes at Catholicism; serious topics are addressed in every story teenage pregnancy and abortion, sexual abuse, debilitating illness, losing a loved one and the links between myth and life are tight and always unexpected. O'Connell has an uncanny ear for dialogue and an otherworldly communion with the hearts and minds of adolescent girls in particular. Whether offering a new version of the Immaculate Conception, testing the influence of St. Christopher on two young female travelers in 1980s London or depicting a cigarette-smoking Saint Anne offering bedside counsel to a single mother who is trying to make ends meet by sleeping with her loathsome boss, the bottom line here is an examination of faith. Traditionalists may be shocked, but everyone else (nonreligious readers included) will be delighted withthese well-crafted, inventive and highly original modern-day visitations. (Oct.) Forecast: Strong reviews should move this charmer. The saint-worshiping market probably won't cross over, but those with a yen for Catholic kitsch will be delighted. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Though living in Italy and Canada may have helped Spencer shed her reputation as a regional Southern writer, her literary vision has always been free of geographical constraint. This collection offers selections from the Mississippi native's earlier short fiction together with several new stories. Best known of the earlier fiction is her stunning novella, The Light in the Piazza (1960), the deceptively simple tale of an American mother and daughter in Florence. The new stories include First Child, the misadventure of an unmarried couple and the child they take on a weekend trip, and The Weekend Travellers, a chilling tale of newlyweds who follow a Pottery sign down a deserted road, where the husband disappears. Spencer published her first story in 1944 and has since published over a dozen books of fiction; this is her first new collection in 15 years. Unlike much episodic short fiction being written today, Spencer's narratives always tell a story. In this she follows the tradition of Henry James and Katherine Mansfield, to whom she has previously been compared. For all public libraries.Mary Szczesiul, Roseville P.L., MI Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews