Synopses & Reviews
"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."BookpageWith 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 Zekes 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 possessionsa childhood copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tucker, his dead brothers ancient doginto his truck, and heads east. He leaves behind two young daughters
About the Author
An eighth-generation Southerner, Amy Franklin-Willis was born in Birmingham, Alabama. In 2007, she received an Emerging Writer Grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation to complete
The Lost Saints of Tennessee.
www.amyfranklin-willis.com