All Us Saints - by Katherine Packert Burke (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"All Us Saints is a gorgeous puzzle-box of a book, with the pieces carved from dread, sex, and secrets. Katherine Packert Burke has inventively inverted the psycho-killer, revealing something new and, once again, shocking." - Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance and Detransition Baby

From the author of the "vibrantly, brilliantly alive" (James Frankie Thomas) Still Life, a haunted family reenacts the violent night their lives changed forever.

Exactly 19 years ago, in May of 1992, 17-year-old Roland St. Cloud fatally stabbed his twin sister Edna's three best friends. The slaying became instant tabloid fodder leading to a bestselling true-crime book and horror movie franchise. Each year on the anniversary of her family's undoing, Edna reenacts the murders. She is joined by her husband, Roger, the night's definitive chronicler; her younger sister Calla, a failed playwright who spends her days lost in online gaming; her younger brother James and his girlfriend Heather; and her teenage daughter Wren. Together, the St. Cloud family seals the windows and doors of the house and lights a grim candle. After their macabre theatrics there's nothing to do but wait for dawn, talk among themselves, and remember.

All Us Saints is a literary family drama packaged as a two-act play. Behind the curtain, Packert Burke unveils Roland's childhood as a closeted trans girl in the early 90s and offers a brilliant and scathing commentary on the cisgender gaze.

Review Quotes

"All Us Saints is a gorgeous puzzle-box of a book, with the pieces carved from dread, sex, and secrets. Katherine Packert Burke has inventively inverted the psycho-killer, revealing something new and, once again, shocking." --Torrey Peters, author of STAGE DANCE and DETRANSITION BABY

"Still Life has lovely and endlessly quotable writing, lived-in characters and a sense of humor...Burke's obsession with the formation of art and penchant for seeing her characters' lives through the lens of another's work conveys an intense appreciation of craft and a deeply inquisitive mind that flourishes in the midst of creation." --Angela Lashbrook, New York Times Book Review

"Katherine Packert Burke is both wise and clever, ironic and not, and with Still Life makes the autofiction snake devour its own tail and go back for seconds." --Tony Tulathimutte, author of REJECTION

About the Author