was published five years after

and is a return to Roberts’s earlier preoccupation with the rewriting of Judaeo-Christian myths and traditions, which is largely absent from the intervening

(1990).

builds upon the fragmentary structure of

(1987), combining a number of narrative threads, set in different times and places. What holds these tales together is not an Ark, or a writers’ group, however, but the issue of sainthood in the Christian tradition. Stretching the boundaries of the novel, Roberts combines rewritings of tales of the saints, based upon Jacobus de Voragine’s fifteenth-century

secular myth and fairytales, with the story of her own impossible saint,…

2188 words

Citation: Falcus, Sarah. "Impossible Saints". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 July 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10498, accessed 26 April 2024.]