When the Saints (29 page)

I pick up Swimmer in my arms. “What do you think?”

He nods his approval, contentedly sucking on his fingers.

The only sound for miles is the occasional round of laughter seeping from the house until Ma’s voice comes bellowing out of one of the second-floor windows: “MY OWN BATHROOM? YOU’RE SHITTING ME!” I can’t help but be reminded of the words Barbara Best lodged in my head all those years ago.

“Music is everywhere,” I whisper.

Swimmer’s fingers fall out of his mouth as he tilts his head back and smiles at me. I smile too. Then I set him down on the ground, take his wet little hand in mine and walk him home.

IN
BIG MARQUEE LIGHTS:

Thank you to the members of my writing group, Ryan Turner, Stephanie Domet, Carsten Knox and Jaime Forsythe, for your steadfast company in this crazy racket.

Thank you to the earliest readers of my writing, Marie Fennell and Erin Smiley; to the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia; to the Banff Centre; and to the grant jury at Arts Nova Scotia for believing in the work that I do.

Thank you to Greg Hollingshead for beating the crap out of me (crap sentences, I should specify); to my amazing agent, Carolyn Forde, with whom I would rob a bank after witnessing such skilled precision (backup plan?); and to HarperCollins for fulfilling an exquisite promise to treat creator and creation as an inseparable entity.

Thank you to the wise and wonderful Padma Viswanathan. Your allegiance to this novel moved mountains. You have given
me a rare gift, and I promise to someday do the same for another writer.

Thank you to my friends. Some of you are actual family members; the rest, just as close. You surround me with support even when the going gets tough, and it makes all the difference. Every one of you is crucial.

Thank you, Shawn Truman Bent. You’ve renewed my faith in love. You make me laugh so hard it disturbs the peace, and while I split my time in imaginary worlds, you do all the cooking, cleaning and wood chopping in the real one. It will be an honour to marry you.

A couple of years ago, an article in
The New Yorker
condemned author acknowledgements as a waste of space. I say the world needs more gratitude, not less. Ditching the acknowledgements would be like showing your film and not rolling the credits afterwards, or putting out an album without naming the audio engineer or any of the background singers. And so, a final shout out:

To Nova Scotia, you beautiful blue bastard. I am proud to come from a place where everyone says thank you, thank you, thank you.

SARAH MIAN
is from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Her award-winning fiction and poetry have appeared in a variety of Canadian journals and magazines, and she occasionally tells true tales on CBC radio. She now lives in a beach cottage on Nova Scotia’s south shore, where the sound of the waves competes with old vinyl records.
When the Saints
is her first novel.

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“
When the Saints
is a page-turner full of frankly enviable lines, but Sarah Mian is musing on deep matters: the nature of historical damage in families, and whether damaged people can animate their undamaged parts to move on. A
Winter’s Bone
for Nova Scotia. This book might make you happy-sad while you’re reading it, but you’ll be happy-sadder when you’re done.” —PADMA VISWANATHAN, author of
The Toss of a Lemon
and the Giller Prize finalist
The Ever After of Ashwin Rao

“Seamlessly rendered in stark, brutal candour,
When the Saints
denotes the timely arrival of an intense, intrepid and by all turns invigorating new voice on the shelves of modern fiction. Unadorned and unapologetic, infused with a passion for truth, Mian’s wizened prose brilliantly captures the outcast’s hard-bitten, unsentimental longing for connection with a narrative drive and an eye for gritty family politics in keeping with some of David Adams Richards’ best offerings.” —JOEL THOMAS HYNES, author of the award-winning
Down to the Dirt
and
Right Away Monday

“Tough, slick and full of grace, Sarah Mian’s gritty new voice is sure to find footholds in the Canadian literary landscape.
When the Saints
is a gripping story of love, sufferance and forgiveness.” —DONNA MORRISSEY, author of
What They Wanted
and
Kit’s Law

Cover design and illustration by Lisa Bettencourt