All the Angels and Saints
by Brawn Sullivan
Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. Western Monotheism.
With his first book, written the summer he was twenty-three, Brawn Sullivan staked out territory that he would return to claim as his own again and again, in his later fiction: The intersections of talent and ambition, of artistry and celebrity, of sexual desire and romantic betrayal, of belief and unbelief. And he staked this claim, in ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS, with a satirical narrative voice by turns sparkling and scathing that, in the words of one Manhattan fiction editor, “brings to mind Waugh and Wilde at their outlandish best.”1
Ostensibly the story of a California rock band on the make in the heady years of the late seventies and early eighties, ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is, in fact, to quote one renowned New York agent, “a wide-ranging farce with the world itself as its target.”2 The book is populated by “bright, engaging and colorful characters,”3 boasts a “breathless, can’t put it down pace,”4 and is “laugh out-loud funny.”5
“ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is a fairly precise summation of how the twenty-three old me experienced, grasped and interpreted the world,” Fr. Sullivan has since said of the novel, written twenty-seven years before his ordination. “Its cheerful cynicism even today can take me back to ‘the way we were,’ that is, the circle of young artists and would-be artists among whom I spent the better part of deep youth. I am grateful for the experience, and more grateful still that ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS came of it.”
1Kathleen Maly, Warner Books; 2Scott Meredith; 3Cate Paterson, Century/Arrow; 4Craig Nelson, Harper & Row; 5Susan Schwartz, Doubleday
by Brawn Sullivan
Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. Western Monotheism.
With his first book, written the summer he was twenty-three, Brawn Sullivan staked out territory that he would return to claim as his own again and again, in his later fiction: The intersections of talent and ambition, of artistry and celebrity, of sexual desire and romantic betrayal, of belief and unbelief. And he staked this claim, in ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS, with a satirical narrative voice by turns sparkling and scathing that, in the words of one Manhattan fiction editor, “brings to mind Waugh and Wilde at their outlandish best.”1
Ostensibly the story of a California rock band on the make in the heady years of the late seventies and early eighties, ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is, in fact, to quote one renowned New York agent, “a wide-ranging farce with the world itself as its target.”2 The book is populated by “bright, engaging and colorful characters,”3 boasts a “breathless, can’t put it down pace,”4 and is “laugh out-loud funny.”5
“ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is a fairly precise summation of how the twenty-three old me experienced, grasped and interpreted the world,” Fr. Sullivan has since said of the novel, written twenty-seven years before his ordination. “Its cheerful cynicism even today can take me back to ‘the way we were,’ that is, the circle of young artists and would-be artists among whom I spent the better part of deep youth. I am grateful for the experience, and more grateful still that ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS came of it.”
1Kathleen Maly, Warner Books; 2Scott Meredith; 3Cate Paterson, Century/Arrow; 4Craig Nelson, Harper & Row; 5Susan Schwartz, Doubleday
by Brawn Sullivan
Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. Western Monotheism.
With his first book, written the summer he was twenty-three, Brawn Sullivan staked out territory that he would return to claim as his own again and again, in his later fiction: The intersections of talent and ambition, of artistry and celebrity, of sexual desire and romantic betrayal, of belief and unbelief. And he staked this claim, in ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS, with a satirical narrative voice by turns sparkling and scathing that, in the words of one Manhattan fiction editor, “brings to mind Waugh and Wilde at their outlandish best.”1
Ostensibly the story of a California rock band on the make in the heady years of the late seventies and early eighties, ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is, in fact, to quote one renowned New York agent, “a wide-ranging farce with the world itself as its target.”2 The book is populated by “bright, engaging and colorful characters,”3 boasts a “breathless, can’t put it down pace,”4 and is “laugh out-loud funny.”5
“ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS is a fairly precise summation of how the twenty-three old me experienced, grasped and interpreted the world,” Fr. Sullivan has since said of the novel, written twenty-seven years before his ordination. “Its cheerful cynicism even today can take me back to ‘the way we were,’ that is, the circle of young artists and would-be artists among whom I spent the better part of deep youth. I am grateful for the experience, and more grateful still that ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS came of it.”
1Kathleen Maly, Warner Books; 2Scott Meredith; 3Cate Paterson, Century/Arrow; 4Craig Nelson, Harper & Row; 5Susan Schwartz, Doubleday
“I have truly enjoyed reading ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS. In fact, I loved every word. Your characters are outstandingly well-rounded. Your storyline is marvelous. Your wry turns of phrase, especially those used as zingers at chapter-ends, are fabulously funny…”