Liars and Saints

Liars and Saints, by Maile Meloy. I confess that I actually picked up this book book after reading that the author is the sister of Colin Meloy, the lead singer/songwriter of one of my current new musical infatuations - The Decemberists! I learned that Maile Meloy is an acclaimed and award winning writer, and that her first novel Liars and Saints received mostly rave reviews from all the major publications, so I had to check it out.
The novel was a quick and engrossing read, following the lives of an American Catholic family over several generations, beginning in WWII, and ending at the dawn of the new millennium. Any summary of the plot would make it sound like one of those big, sprawling, melodramatic dysfunctional family dramas, but it is actually very understated and written in spare and unembellished prose. Much of the action hinges on the multi-generational effects of a single deception. The characters all seemed very real and believable and many of the passages had a subtle power. The plot moves quickly and covers a tremendous amount of ground, sometimes taking pretty dramatic and extreme twists, but always told in that plain and spare style.