The Lost Saints of Tennessee

"The Lost Saints of Tennessee is a joy-a wonderful, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story about the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood and the human will to survive. I was deeply moved by it and equally impressed. I loved this book." -Elizabeth George

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, The Lost Saints of Tennessee 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 and his estranged mother, who reveals her own conflicting view of the Cooper family story in a vulnerable but spirited voice stricken by guilt over old sins as she clings to the hope that her family isn't beyond repair.

When Zeke finds refuge with his sympathetic cousins in Virginia horse country, divine acts in the form of severe weather, illness, and a new romance collide, leading Zeke to a crossroads where he must decide the fate of his family-either by clinging to the way life was or moving toward what life might be.

Written with abundant charm, warmth, and authority, The Lost Saints of Tennessee is the story of a unique brotherhood and a moving consideration of the ways grief can first devastate and then restore.

"The gifted novelist, Amy Franklin-Willis, has written a riveting, hardscrabble book on the rough, hardscrabble south, which has rarely been written about with such grace and compassion. It reminded me of the time I read Dorothy Allison's classic, Bastard out of Carolina." -Pat Conroy

"The Lost Saints of Tennessee is a joy-a wonderful, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story about the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood and the human will to survive. I was deeply moved by it and equally impressed." -Elizabeth George

"Franklin-Willis has grace on the page." -Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard out of Carolina

"Amy Franklin-Willis's characters speak with graceful authenticity. The Lost Saints of Tennessee moves from sadness to understanding, through a landscape full of small mysteries and large truths. Franklin-Willis proves herself a writer of promise and talent." -Mark Childress, author of Georgia Bottoms and Crazy in Alabama

"I was in love with The Lost Saints of Tennessee all the way through. Every page. It was the most satisfying book I've read in a long time." -Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward and Jumpstart the World

"In her splendid debut novel, The Lost Saints of Tennessee, Amy Franklin-Willis delivers a tender, lyrical tale about one broken man's search for forgiveness, healing, and the real meaning of family. Her words ring true on every page and compel us to follow in step as Ezekiel Cooper journeys from the life he has known to the one he so desperately craves." -Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove and Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

"Amy Franklin-Willis has given us a first novel full of great love, pathos, and change. A rich and compelling tale of a large family and the complexities of the human spirit, you will not want to put The Lost Saints of Tennessee down. It is a completely satisfying read." -Jeanne Ray, author of Julie and Romeo and Eat Cake: A Novel