The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls: A Novel - Hardcover

Hegi, Ursula

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250156823 ISBN 13: 9781250156822

Publisher: Flatiron Books, 2020

Synopsis

In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus has come to the island Nordstrand in Germany. Big-bellied girls rush from St. Margaret's Home for Pregnant Girls, thrilled to see the parade and the show, followed by the Sisters who care for them. The Old Women and Men, competing to be crowned as the island’s Oldest Person, watch, thinking they have seen it all. But after the show, a Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young children. Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and Tilli, still just a child herself, who will give birth later that day at St. Margaret’s. And all three will end up helping each other more than they ever could have anticipated.

As full of joy and beauty as it is of pain, and told with the luminous power that has made Ursula Hegi a beloved bestselling author for decades, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a shattering portrait of marriage and motherhood, and of the ways in which women hold each other up in the face of heartbreak.

About this title

About the Author

Ursula Hegi is the author of The Worst Thing I’ve Done, Sacred Time, Hotel of the Saints, The Vision of Emma Blau, Tearing the Silence, Salt Dancers, Stones from the River, Floating in My Mother’s Palm, Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories, Intrusions, and Trudi & Pia. She teaches writing at Stonybrook’s Southhampton Campus and she is the recipient of more than thirty grants and awards.

Review

Praise for The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls

“By the author of the beloved Stones from the River, Hegi’s new novel is sure to be her next beloved book....A writer at the height of her powers. I can’t think of a better way to ‘endorse’ a novel than to say I will be gifting it to my book-loving friends and family―a gift, mind you, not a loan, as I want to keep this title in my keeper bookshelf along with several others of my favorite of Hegi’s novels. As in a circus after a particularly riveting performance, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls deserves a thunderous round of applause.”
―Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Saving the World, and most recently A Wedding in Haiti

“The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a novel full of marvels―children with missing fathers, girls too young to be mothers, nuns who cherish their charges, circus acrobats, the beautiful northern light―but the greatest marvel is Ursula Hegi’s shimmering, radiant, vivid prose. Her characters, and their lives full of love and longing, leap off the page and into the reader’s heart.”
―Margot Livesey, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury and The Flight of Gemma Hardy

Praise for Ursula Hegi

“An outstanding talent.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“A writer of grace and immediacy.” ―Meg Wolitzer

“Epic, daring, magnificent.” ―Los Angeles Times

“Unforgettable.” ―The Washington Post

“Stunning.” ― Los Angeles Times

“Deeply moving.” ―J.M. Coetzee

“Brilliant...Mesmerizing.” ―Chicago Tribune

“Marvelous.” ―Alice McDermott

“Devastatingly honest.” ―San Francisco Chronicle

“Masterful.” ―The Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Flatiron Books
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 1250156823
• ISBN 13: 9781250156822
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288