Without Saints - by Christopher Locke (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Without Saints is a breathtaking journey to rediscover hope between the ruins: Poet Christopher Locke was baptized by Pentecostals, absolved by punk rock, and nearly consumed by narcotics. Like Denis Johnson's propulsive Jesus' Son, Without Saints is a brief, muscular ride into the heart of American desolation, and the love one finds waiting for them instead.

Review Quotes

"...[an] affecting memoir...a deeply humanist story of community and the salvation found in it." --Publishers Weekly

"Christopher Locke's Without Saints is an intimate and lyrical book of essays that begins with vivid and wondrous memories of childhood, into early adulthood's ambivalence around a worrying drug use, into the intimacies of being a husband and a father. And finally, into two of the book's knockouts: a beautiful remembrance of the poet and writer, Donald Hall, and a probing look at what it's like to teach a creative writing workshop inside the walls of a federal prison. Locke's writing is up close and personal and brave--always revealing, always acknowledging the tenderness and melancholy of living out loud." --Michael Klein, author of Track Conditions

"Haunting and understated, Christopher Locke chronicles the secrets that bedevil every extended family." --David L . Marcus, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of What it Takes to Pull Me Through

"In his visionary memoir-in-essays Without Saints, Christopher Locke freezes the past, covering enforced religiosity, self-destructive habits, his marriage and fatherhood, and teaching." --Foreword Reviews

About the Author

Christopher Locke is the author of 12 books and chapbooks. His latest collection of poetry Music for Ghosts (New York Quarterly Books) and memoir Without Saints (Black Lawrence Press) were both released in 2022. He's received grants from Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain), the New York State Council on the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Chris teaches English at SUNY Plattsburgh in the Adirondacks