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Lives of the Saints is a drama novel written by Canadian author, Nino Ricci. It follows the life of six (almost seven) year old Vittorio "Vitto" Innocente and his mother, Cristina within the small Italian village of Valle del Sole. On a hot day on April 1956, Vitto runs into his mother having an affair with a blue-eyed man, despite being a married woman. Word of her affair reaches the other villagers, who are ultra religious, and she (and be extension, Vittorio) is immediately ostracized.
The novel is the first in the Lives of the Saints trilogy, the other two sequels being In a Glass House, and Where She Has Gone.
The book contains examples of
- An Aesop: Be careful pointing out someone's wrongdoings while ignoring your own. Considering the religious themes in the book, this is a brilliant example of "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
- Analogy Backfire: A meta example. Father Nicola gives a homily during Sunday mass about St. Cristina, a closet Christian woman who was tortured and martyred by the townsmen for her beliefs, on the orders of her father no less. It's made clear that this was meant to parallel Cristina Innocente's life, and the priest attempting to calm down the villagers' scrutiny of her. However this is a somewhat poor analogy, as St.Cristina was following God's commands, while our Cristina was breaking the Christian law regarding extra-marital affairs.
- Artistic License – Religion: The villagers continuously use the snake bite as solid proof of Cristina's infidelity (not that they're wrong, but sometimes a snake bite is just a snake bite). They have an entire system on what snake bites symbolize based on its size, colour, and from which direction it came from, and whether the snake's victim has sinned against God. The thing is, it's made abundantly clear from the beginning that Valle del Sole is a Catholic village, and Catholics go by the Bible. Outside of the Book of Genesis, there is no other mention of snakes, not even in Church supplementary material, so the villagers' strongly-held snake beliefs are non-canon rhetoric. Where they came up with this system of snakes is left unknown.
- Superstitious folk beliefs are common in the poor, remote parts of Italy. Some are holdovers from pre-Christian times as it's common everywhere for converts to bring some of their existing beliefs with them when they become Christians, creating localized brands of Christianity. Others develop over time as any superstitions do. As long as regional superstitions do not contradict important Christian tenants, the Church generally does not get involved in trying to stamp them out.
- Big "WHAT?!": Cristina's reaction when her best friend Giuseppina urges her to sacrifice a chicken to lift the curse off of her [Cristina] and her family resulting from her affair.
- Bittersweet Ending: Vittorio successfully lands in Canada, as opposed to America. But on the other hand, he left as a social outcast by the people he's known all his life, he is forced to leave behind his only friend, Cristina is dead after giving birth, and now he has landed in a new country with a baby in arms to be taken back into the care of his abusive father.
- Book Dumb: Vittorio's best friend, Fabrizio qualifies, as such that his father pulls him out of school to keep him working on the fields full-time. Though judging from a few casual mentions, one can speculate that Fabrizio's academic ineptness is a result of his father beating him for most of his life.
- Subverted with Vittorio. La maestra sometime before the events of the book says to Cristina that he is 'intelligent but lazy'. And indeed this is the case, as after la maestra takes him under her wing during his bullying period, he is sufficiently motivated to take his books home and study, thus resulting in high grades that make him become one of la maestra's star students.
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Broken Aesop: The book attempts to portray Cristina as a woman with a feminist mindset that defies cultural norms. However, it's kind of hard to sympathize with her when her idea of defying social norms involves cheating on her husband. Partly justified though, as her husband is a domestic abuser, and divorce was a rare thing to accomplish back in the 50s.- In the sequel, "Where She Has Gone," it was revealed it was commonplace for wives of husbands who emigrated elsewhere for long stretches to have affairs that resulted in pregnancies. So much so that people would stumble upon dead babies abandoned in fields, and the Church created a system for women to anonymously leave their babies at a convent. Cristina’s “crime” wasn’t that she did something that many other women (and likely the men who emigrated ahead of their wives) were all doing. It was that she refused to hide her pregnancy because she was intent on keeping the baby.
- Children Are Innocent: A major theme in the book. Through Vittorio's first-person narration, we are able to see how some of the villagers are beginning to treat him poorly as a result of his mother's infidelity, but because he is only seven at the time, he doesn't understand why people are mistreating him.
- Subverted by the other village children in a form of Kids Are Cruel, particularly Vittorio's classmates who continuously bully him over Cristina. Possibly justified, as they knew of Cristina's affair from their parents, who most certainly ordered them not to speak with Vittorio, and were possibly encouraged to do bully him. This an example of the flip side of children not knowing any better.
- Death by Childbirth: Cristina bleeds to death just hours after giving birth to Rita.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: La maestra, who begins to go soft on Vittorio halfway through the book when she notices his the other students cruelly bullying over Cristina's affair.
- Disappeared Dad: Mario Innocente left for America (actually Canada) when Vittorio was three in order to pave the way for his family to have a better life. Cristina isn't gigging for it though.
- Dissonant Serenity: Vittorio visibly freaks out at the hospital where his mom is being treated for a snake bite, believing that she's dead. At the very end of the book when Cristina dies for real, he reacts with Dull Surprise, and continues with the Scenery Porn.
- Domestic Abuse: Vittorio's father, Mario, was physically abusive towards both him and Cristina. His leaving to America (actually Canada), was seen as a blessing to both.
- Mario's abuse toward Cristina serves as her Freudian Excuse for cheating on him while he was away.
- Double-Meaning Title: In its literal form, Lives of the Saints refers to the book that la maestra gives to Vittorio as a parting gift. In its figurative form, it's a brilliant case of an in-universe Take That! to the Valle del Sole villagers, who believe Cristina to be the vilest sinner to ever live, while ignoring the fact that even they don't exactly live such saintly lives either.
- Double Standard: Invoked by Cristina, who questions as to why her father and the villagers villainize her for having an affair when there's the possibility that her husband Mario, who's alone in America, could very well be doing the same thing. Her father responds by calling her a communist.
- Dull Surprise: From Vittorio's less-than-flattering description of everything going on throughout the book, he likely has this attitude.
- Get Out!: Cristina's fathers furious last words to her when she announces her intention to go to "America" to catch up with Mario. Lo pudesta practically bans his daughter from entering his house ever again (though permitting his grandson to return whenever he wishes), and states his intention to pray every night for Cristina to burn in Hell. Nice father.
- Good Bad Girl: Even though Cristina engages in extra marital sex and deviates from many of her village's traditions, she's still a devout Catholic as some pages show.
- Informed Attractiveness: Cristina is considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the village, even from a young age.
- Subverted in the sequel, "Where She Has Gone," when Vittorio returns to his village and realizes she looked far more plain than he remembered when he sees a picture of her.
- Jerkass: Almost everyone, minor characters included, fit this trope nicely.
- Vittorio is quite prone to being rude to other people for absolutely no reason, even when some go out of their way to be nice to him (the only exception being la maestra, but Vittorio knew that he it was in his best interest to stay on good terms with the only person who can protect him from getting beaten up after school).
- Cristina herself, though hers is downplayed to being more of a snob. She easily loses her temper with everyone, even when they do speak kindly to her. Justified though, as she is being treated like dirt by almost everyone, save for her son and her close male friend, Luciano. So really, she's within her right here.
- Cristina's father, who is prone to angry fits when faced with any inconvenience. He starts out as the mayor ("lo pudesta") of Valle del Sole, and as such shows far more concern for his social status than for his daughter's well-being. It only gets worse later on when he is pressured to resign from his position when Cristina's scandal gets too strong.
- Karma Houdini: The blue-eyed man never gets any comeuppance for practically ruining a family's life by having an affair with a married woman, making her a social outcast, impregnating her with his child, which kills her, and effectively leaving Vittorio all alone in a foreign land with a baby he's unable to look after. Though he does have small shades of The Atoner to him, as he is seen visiting Vittorio in the infirmary after he's passed out during Cristina's funeral.
- Vittorio's classmates seemingly escape punishment for bullying Vittorio. The only classmate to get some form of comeuppance is Alfredo, who gets the scare of his life when Cristina breaks into house threatening to kill his mother if she ever catches him bullying Vittorio ever again.
- The ferry's doctor practically scraps the Hippocratic oath by immediately abandoning Cristina mere minutes after she gave birth without trying to stop the bleeding, which results in Cristina bleeding to death sometime later. He did this all because he didn't like Cristina's high-and-mighty attitude. Had this happened today, not only would he have been stripped of his licence, but he would be found criminally guilty in abandoning a patient to die.
- Literal Bastard: Cristina's baby.
- Meaningful Name: Vittorio's last name 'Innocente' is supposed to emphasize his childhood innocence and naivety while living in an unkind world.
- Really Gets Around: Implied with Cristina. Even though we only see her have an affair with one man, she acts quite coquette with other men in the book. And if Vittorio is to be believed, Cristina likely had other men in her house over the years.
- Rule of Symbolism: The colour blue which represents Cristina's blue-eyed lover, and eggs that symbolize birth. These two combined (as shown in Vitto's Prophetic Dream) symbolize and foreshadow Rita's birth.
- The lucky lira that was given to him by Luciano symbolizes his good luck. It eventually slides out of the ship into the ocean shortly after Cristina's death, symbolizing Vittorio's luck leaving him altogether.
- Scenary Porn: If you take away Cristina's story plot, the entire book would be about Vittorio describing the scenary around him. Said descriptions would either sound peaceful to some readers, or be considered a bunch of Info Dump by others who might see it as irrelevant to the plot.
- Sins of the Father: Or rather, sins of the mother. Vittorio is bullied by the village children when word of his mother's affair gets out.
- Stern Teacher: La maestra is initially thought to be a cruel teacher by her students, especially by Vittorio and Fabrizio. From readers' perspective, it's obvious that she's only concerned for her students' education, and yet she's never seen applying corporal punishment on them despite the practice being legal in the 50s. It isn't until after Vittorio suffers from bullying that he begins to see her as a Reasonable Authority Figure.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: As Cristina and Vittorio are about to get into a taxi to leave the village permanently, she delivers one of these to the onlooking villagers, calling them out on their backwards superstitions and the pure stupidity of them ostracizing her and her family as a result of those supersititions.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Vittorio and his best friend Fabrizio, both seven and eight years old respectively, ocassionally smoke cigarettes in their free time.
- Unreliable Narrator: Vittorio being a small child means that he isn't able to fully interpret the events around him. Ocassionally readers to fill in the gaps.
