Ten Thousand Saints - Softcover

"Henderson's novel recalls all the sweat and fury of coming of age. . . It's also a beautifully rendered study of devotion-to a cause, a religion, a scene, and one's own family-and all the conflict and sacrifice that devotion entails."--The Millions

"Eleanor Henderson is in possession of an enormous talent which she has matched up with skill, ambition, and a fierce imagination. The resulting novel, TEN THOUSAND SAINTS, is the best thing I've read in a long time. "--Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder

"Ten Thousand Saints is a whirling dervish of a first novel--a planet, a universe, a trip. As wild as that may sound, wonder of wonders, the book is also carefully and lovingly created... [Henderson] writes with great compassion but does not flinch"--Los Angeles Times

"Absorbing...Tone is just one element Henderson balances well.... She also packs her coming-of-age story with grit and a generational wallop.... In this naturalistic and assured novel, Henderson crafts a satisfying structure...psychological astuteness is a key pleasure of Ten Thousand Saints."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Proudly unsentimental...Henderson zeroes in on the essentially malleable nature of these teenagers without squashing them into an indistinguishable mass..., Henderson parcels out its history in tantalizing images and snatches of conversations, holding back where her protagonists might themselves miss the significance of their surroundings."--The Onion AV Club

"I loved TEN THOUSAND SAINTS; again and again I was stopped cold by beautiful chapter-ending sentences. I remember this Manhattan, the Sunday matinees at CB's, the rage over Yuppies colonizing the East Village. "--Dean Wareham, lead singer of Galaxie 500 and Luna, author of BLACK POSTCARDS

"Henderson's debut novel bursts out of the gate with all of the drive and sensory assault of the punk music that infuses it.... It's an auspicious debut, and gives us reason to hope that Henderson will mature as satisfyingly as her subjects do."--Boston Globe

"[An] empathetic novel of wayward youth and their wayward parents...Henderson proves herself to be an expert ethnographer; her detail work is phenomenal....characterizations demonstrate Henderson's greatest skill. Even the ones who receive comparatively little stage time are always precisely defined... Henderson's affection for [the characters] is palpable."--Washington Post

"Rarely has a coming-of-age novel captured a time and place-here the late 1980s on Manhattan's Lower East Side-with such perfect pitch. Grade: A"--Entertainment Weekly

"Countless coming-of-age novels have been written. When a truly exceptional story of this nature does come along, it's a significant literary event... Ten Thousand Saints is memorable for its boldness and ambition, its empathetic prose, and the troubled souls who discover unlikely forms of redemption."--Dallas Morning News