Living with saints

"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."--BOOK JACKET.