“Jude and Teddy are best friends living in a small Vermont town in the late 1980’s, getting drunk on cheap red wine and sniffing coolant from air conditioners. Jude’s mother, Harriet, and father, Les, are aging hippies still immersed in the pot culture of the 60’s, although divorced from each other. Harriet makes glass bongs in her Vermont studio and Les sells the pot he grows indoors in New York City. Eliza, the daughter of Les’ wealthy dancer girlfriend, is on her way to a skiing vacation with friends but stops for a short visit with Jude. On New Year’s Eve 1987 Jude, Teddy and Eliza spend the night together at a party they have crashed. Their lives are changed irrevocably by the next morning. Teddy is dead from a drug overdose, Eliza is pregnant with Teddy’s child, and Jude is propelled even more deeply into his drug induced haze . . . Eleanor Henderson cares about her unpromising cast of characters. She has created an empathic portrait of young people, who, if we saw them on the street, would be easy to dismiss. Her writing is original and accomplished. This is a great first novel and I eagerly await her next creation.”—Gretchen, Santoro’s Books, Seattle. Buy Ten Thousand Saints from Santoro’s Books.
Face Out
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
March 2, 2012