Absent a Miracle

An ex–talk show host, her cheating husband, and a plot to canonize a friend’s Nicaraguan aunt make for “pure, unadulterated adulterous entertainment” (The New York Times).

Lapsed Catholic Alice Fairweather is searching for meaning. Having lost her ideal job as a radio talk show host who interprets dreams, hopelessly in love with a husband who loves too many other women, and stuck in upstate New York with her sons and dogs, one of whom is ill, her life isn’t exactly what she envisioned as a young girl. So when Abelardo, her husband’s former roommate, comes to visit on a quest to make his aunt the first Nicaraguan saint, it feels like a sign.

Suddenly, Alice finds herself on a madcap mission to canonize a woman she’s never met, becoming intimately acquainted with the history of female sainthood, striking up an odd friendship with the eccentric head of New York’s hagiography club, and traveling to Nicaragua on a last-minute flight.

Equal parts moving and hilarious, Absent a Miracle is a quirky and sharp look at love, loss, identity, faith, marriage, and—of course—sainthood.