The first novel from the bestselling author of The Dutch House, Commonwealth and Bel Canto, Winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction and the Pen/Faulkner Award.
It is 1968. Rose Clinton arrives at St Elizabeth's, a Roman Catholic home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky. Rose has fled her dull but loving husband without telling him she is pregnant and has decided to be 'a liar for the rest of my life'. As penance, she has also abandoned her widowed and much loved mother, with no mention of her condition.
Rose plans to give her baby up because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs. But St. Elizabeth's is home to a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she realises that she cannot go through with her plans. Nor can she remain untouched by those she has left behind; by the ever-watchful Sister Evangeline; by the love of Son, the handyman at St. Elizabeth; or later by the birth of her daughter Cecilia.
Enchantingly graceful, Ann Patchett's first novel is about sanctuary and pilgrimage, pain and healing and the helping hand of chance.
- ISBN10 039561306X
- ISBN13 9780395613061
- Publish Date 1 January 1993 (first published 1 January 1992)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 21 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Houghton Mifflin
- Imprint Houghton Mifflin (Trade)
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336
- Language English