The Saint Zita Society
A stand-alone novel published by Hutchinson in 2012
As with most of my work, an idea came to me out of the blue for Saint Zita. There is a poor, disturbed, superstitious man who believes a god lives in his cellphone. It is his personal god, a supernatural being who advises him and commands him. Once I’d got that idea, I had to have a setting for him, and the next step was to make him a servant—in his case, a gardener—among the sort of people who are servants today. These are the modern kind of servants—nannies, au pairs, drivers—and quite different types from what were customary in the past.
Life in the well-manicured London locale of Hexam Place is not as placid and orderly as it appears. Behind the tranquil gardens and polished entryways, relationships between servants and their employers are set to combust.
When millionaire banker, Preston Still, kills his wife’s lover by pushing him down the stairs, he looks to the family au pair to help him dispose of the body.
But the au pair belongs to the Saint Zita Society, a self-formed group of drivers, nannies and gardeners who are servants to the rich and whose intentions are not entirely benign.
Notes
Saint Zita 2, the patron Saint of Lucca, lies in rest in the church of San Frediano, dressed and in full view, some 700-plus years after her death in 1272.
Ruth Rendell interviewed by Peter Kemp at the Charleston Festival in 2012.
My Monster and Me. Nearly 30 years after her debut novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson returns to the scenes of her extraordinary childhood in Lancashire.“”
Ruth Rendell reads ""Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook by MR James.
Contemporary Reads 3
Dennis Lehane - Live by Night
Attica Locke - The Cutting Season
John Banville - Ancient Light
Valerio Varesi - The Dark Valley
Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies
Ian Rankin - Standing in Another Man’s Grave
Footnotes
A chat with Ruth Rendell. Publisher’s Weekly 2012 ↩︎
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