All Saints' Day — Brent Benoit

"All Saints' Day" is a bold and provocative southern novel in the tradition of Walker Percy and John Kennedy Toole. Brent Benoit's debut movingly chronicles two generations of the Bueche family of Maringouin, Louisiana, a family of Cajun ancestry that has been defined by a tragedy-the accidental death of their gifted, infant child at the hands of his feeble twin brother. The lives of both parents, Ulysse (a.k.a. Russell) and Doreen, are driven toward this event, and in putting it behind them the child's brothers, Whitaker and Clayton, reach toward resolution while teetering on the verge of catastrophe.
In "All Saints' Day" the lives of simple people attain the status of myth. It is a novel that both captivates the reader in its rendering of a vanishing culture and surprises at every turn. Tautly written, harrowing and heart-filled, "All Saints' Day" marks Brent Benoit's emergence as a writer to watch.