The Maker of Saints

by Thulani Davis

A QPB and BOMC selection. The author's previous novel, 1959, was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award . Bird Kinkaid is an African-American woman who has recently been plagued by It is a month after she witnessed Alex, her closest friend, plunge eight stories to her death on the sidewalk below and her grief has turned into obsession. Was Alex killed or was it a suicide? Was it an accident or did the white art critic and sometimes lover Frank Burton push her to her death? The two women had an intense friendship, their lives intertwined by shared space, history, friends (and occasionally lovers), and a passion for art. Alex's death shatters Bird, compelling her to search for answers to her friend's death amidst the disparate strands of Alex's quixotic life. When she locates a series of bizarre video tapes among Alex's belongings, in which she discusses her friends, her artwork, and her turbulent love life, Bird has the key to solving both the mystery of her friend's death and her own long-hidden demons.Alive with wit and sensibility, Maker of Saints is a fascinating and provocative novel about love, art, jealousy, and friendship in a funky, glitzy, New York demimonde.

Genres: Fiction, African American Literature, American, African American

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Born in 1949.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maker of Saints was a chore to get through. Thulani Davis' writing is distractingly abstract and overwrought. The vast amount of small characters makes it difficult for the reader to tell one apart from another. The plot is uninteresting, and the length is insufferable. The friendship between Bird and Alex, the anchor of the whole story, comes across as dubious. Davis fails to provide enough details to make the relationship between the two women believable.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Davis offers a wonderful hybrid narrative here: conventional mystery meets meditation on American culture from the 1960s to the 1980s. As always, she has an eye for the telling detail (unsurprising, from a poet) and terribly likeable protagonist. Sure to please lovers of so-called "literary" mystery, but also of interest to fans--like myself--of the turbulent art scene of the American 1980s.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow, pretty intense….
We follow Bird as she investigates the circumstances of her friend Alex’s apparent suicide, and explores their past in the process.
They were Black women, living in NYC’s avant guard art scene in the Civil Rights era. And they had been close friends with a long history.
Bird is convinced Alex’s lover, a white art critic, was guilty and she goes to great lengths to uncover the truth.
It’s an intense journey, intense ending!

[Radia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally couldn’t put it down.

[Sandra Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as insightful into the world of black artists as promised by some reviewers.But still an interesting read.