Lives of the Saints is a 1985 novel by Nancy Lemann. Set in the author's native New Orleans, it follows Louise Brown, also from New Orleans, who has returned home after four years at a college in the northeast. The plot mainly focuses on Louise's growing relationship with a young Southern gentleman named Claude Collier. The novel was published by Alfred A. Knopf, now a division of Penguin Random House. Lemann's first novel, the book won the author "a few stellar reviews and a following of people who prize fiction's subtler qualities".
Upon its initial publication, the New York Times printed a positive review in which the book is described as "a dense, musically patterned novel, in which repetitions of scenes, images and phrases â varied by mood and time â acquire a cumulative power" and "a finely etched picture of the South ⦠a lyrical prose poem about a young womanâÂÂs coming of age".