A Saint from Texas by Edmund White

Published by Bloomsbury on August 4, 2020

Sometimes a book that would not otherwise interest me is so beautifully written that it carries me along. A Saint from Texas is a family drama set largely in aristocratic France, although significant parts of the story revolve around a nun in South America. While neither nuns nor aristocrats whet my literary interest, much of A Saint from Texas is absorbing. Edmund White made me care about characters in a genre that typically bores the pants off me.

Speaking of people losing their pants, White titillates with sufficient sex in its various configurations that any reader whose blood still flows hot on occasion will wonder what naughtiness the novel’s twin protagonists will be up to next. They are twins in a literal sense, two sisters who take divergent paths in life while remaining very much the same person in fundamental ways. Yvonne considers Yvette her “ransom paid to virtue.” Yvette lives a pious life on behalf of both sisters, freeing Yvonne to explore the sexual interests that Yvette makes an unsuccessful effort to subordinate. In the end, Yvonne considers them both to be “good Texas girls,” a label that is questionable in Yvonne’s case even if religious judgment is removed from the definition of “good.”

The story begins in Texas, where luck and oil (and later real estate investments) make Peter Crawford a wealthy man. He has two daughters, Yvonne and Yvette, and a new wife, Bobbie Jean, who dedicates herself to giving the girls a sophisticated and educated life. Both girls are bright, but Yvonne is drawn to fashion and celebrity while Yvette wants to live a religious, cloistered life. We eventually learn, in a scene that seems forced, that Peter is a seriously flawed father.

Neither sister wants to stay in Texas and they both have the financial security to do as they please. Yvonne travels to Paris where she marries a baron because aristocracy suits her. Of course, her husband, Adhéaume de Courcy, has only married her for her money, which he squanders as quickly as he can in ways that will maximize his desire to be envied for his good taste. Yvette, meanwhile, converts to Catholicism and joins a convent in Colombia, but only after she apparently performs a miracle by lifting a car to save a trapped child.

The novel is a study in contrasts. Texas is new and brash, a state of Barcaloungers. Paris is old and reserved, where the Louis XIV furniture that Texans would toss in the trash is revered. The convent is austere, a place where old and new have little meaning. Texas food is spicy; the food favored by French aristocrats is bland; a Filipina nun in Colombia feels lucky when she can eat white rice. Yvette has renounced materialism; Yvonne is consumed by it, at least when it comes to fashion.

Yet there are similarities in the interior lives of Yvonne and Yvette, including their attraction to women. Yvonne prefers male bodies but regards women as more considerate lovers; Yvette’s experience with a male was unwelcome, so she has less basis for comparison. Neither woman has perfect self-control, which is awkward for a married woman or a nun, but it is difficult to judge either of them, given their circumstances.

We learn about Yvette’s life (including her doubts about the church and her inability to control her sexual desire) from letters that she writes to Yvonne. White concentrates the plot on Yvonne, whose eventful life includes a ménage à trois, a strained relationship with her husband’s parents, a tense relationship with a father who disapproves of her husband, and a priest who gives her unlikely advice about how to solve her marital problems. The advice seems much too casual to be authentic and not the sort of thing that even a fallen priest would suggest. That aspect of the novel and some others (including an effort to purchase a sainthood for Yvette, the sexual choices made by the twins, and White’s portrayal of French aristocracy) are presumably intended as satire, but the satire is too underplayed to be effective. The injection of satire is also unsettlingly discordant, given that significant parts of the novel (such as the odious behavior of Peter) are apparently meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, if Peter’s conduct toward Yvette is meant to be satirical, it isn’t funny. Some subject just don’t lend themselves to humor.

After a significant event resolves the drama that surrounds Yvonne’s life, the story peters out. The next few decades pass in a whirlwind of exposition that adds little to the story.

Notwithstanding the novel’s troubling aspects, White’s ability to create complex characters and to detail their lives in observant and elegant prose makes the novel worthwhile. All but the last couple of chapters are fascinating, in the trashy way that Dallas and Nip/Tuck were fascinating. Deeply religious readers might want to avoid the novel entirely. Readers who insist that only admirable characters can make a book enjoyable will find few characters they would want to know. Moral faults aside, both Yvette and Yvonne live the life they choose, and Yvonne at least lives an interesting (albeit scandalous) life that compelled me to keep reading.

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