Katherine Harbour's Blog - Posts Tagged "sixties"

All the Crooked Saints
Set in Colorado in the early sixties, this is the story of the Soria family. Its younger members--sixteen-year-old Joaquin, eighteen-year-old Beatrice, and nineteen-year-old Daniel--aspire to different things. But Daniel is a saint who can perform miracles.
The miracles manifest in strange ways and the pilgrims who come for them often suffer an odd transformation that won't vanish until they reach some sort of catharsis. Joaquin and Beatrice run a pirate radio station. Beatrice believes she's cold-hearted even after meeting a sweet boy named Pete, who comes to work at the Soria ranch. There are striking characters, such as a girl in a constant veil of rain and a bridal gown covered with live butterflies, and I found the magic realism haunting. As the Soria family's fantastical history unfolds, one of them is placed in peril and must be saved by a miracle. More of a fable than a plot-driven narrative, this story is for fans of Isabel Allende, Francesca Lia Block, and Alice Hoffman.