Without Saints

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