This was another selection from my international Whats App book club. Following one queer book with another, I guess: Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin’s Ordinary Saints features the lesbian sister of a young priest-in-training who is currently being considered for sainthood. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t my cup of tea.
From a style perspective, Ordinary Saints was trying for me: Ni Mhaoileoin made the decision to write the entire book in historic present tense, which I find extremely trying just in general. It’s especially trying here because there’s a lot of jumps in time between the present day of Ferdia’s sainthood process and the past of his growing up. The lesbian sister in question, Jacinta, is also kind of insufferable, and not the kind of insufferable that feels intentional, either. This brief extract just about sums it up for me. It also set me off enough that I took a picture of the quote and sent it to the WhatsApp chat in question:
I never chose my own job, I took it because Bart offered it to me when I worked in a café where he often held meetings, and he decided that he liked my vibe.
(For context, Jacinta works in marketing.)
I sent the above quote the group chat with the comment:
ok we rightfully give out of touch Boomers shit about saying how you can get hired with a winning smile and a firm handshake, and yet a fellow Millennial is out here putting this in her novel? fuck right off.
There was a lot of discussion about Ordinary Saints in the chat otherwise, trying to figure out just how awful Jay’s family was or wasn’t. In the end I came down on the side of: they weren’t nearly as awful as Jay acted like they were (certainly not so awful to never mention them to her friends in London), or at least not for the reasons she vaguely alluded to: being very religious and kind of lower class and cringe. As another member put it, “a better written book wouldn’t have tried so hard to convince us her family were all assholes.”
All in all, hard pass, but it’s a quick read.
