Still Water Saints: A Novel

by Alex Espinoza (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.22

  Still Water Saints chronicles a momentous year in the life of Agua Mansa, a largely Latino town beyond the fringes of Los Angeles and home to the Botanica Oshun, where people come seeking charms, herbs, and candles. Above all, they seek the guidance of Perla Portillo, the shop's owner. Perla has served the community for years, arming her clients with the tools to overcome all manner of crises, large and small. There is Juan, a man coming to terms with the death of his father; Nancy, a recently married schoolteacher; Shawn, an addict looking for peace in his chaotic life; and Rosa, a teenager trying to lose weight and find herself. But when a customer with a troubled and mysterious past arrives, Perla struggles to help and must confront both her unfulfilled hopes and her doubts about her place in a rapidly changing world.

  Imaginative, inspiring, lyrical, and beautifully written, Still Water Saints evokes the unpredictability of life and the resilience of the spirit through the journeys of the people of Agua Mansa, and especially of the one woman at the centre of it all. Theirs are stories of faith and betrayal, love and loss, the bonds of family and community, and the constancy of change.

  `[A] magical debut . . . Espinoza is a refreshing new writer, and his first novel embeds itself indelibly into the reader's memory' Booklist

  `Still Water Saints is a bravura work, guiding outsiders to exotic people and customs' Geoffrey Wolff, author of The Duke of Deception