From the acclaimed Sewanee Writers' Series, "a brilliantly original, dramatic, and moving tale of life in the Cajun country of Louisiana, with its dangerous oil rigs, decaying plantation houses, and intense loves and hatreds." Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Foreign Affairs.

All Saints' Day is a bold and provocative debut novel that calls to mind Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. Brent Benoit movingly chronicles two generations of a fictional family of Cajun ancestry. The Bueche family of Maringouin, Louisiana, has been defined by a tragedy-the accidental death of their gifted, infant child at the hands of his feeble twin brother. It is an event that seems almost preordained, sending shock waves both into the past and into the future. The lives of both parents, Ulysse (a.k.a. Russell) and Doreen, are driven toward it, and in putting it behind them the child's brothers, Whitaker and Clayton, reach toward resolution while teetering on the verge of catastrophe.

In All Saints' Day, the lives of simple people attain the status of myth, as the dynamic elements of fate, guilt, and reconciliation are woven together to produce a story that both captivates the reader in its rendering of a vanishing culture and surprises at every turn. Tautly written, both harrowing and heart-filled, All Saints' Day marks Brent Benoit's emergence as a writer to watch.

"This vivid, original novel about Cajuns in Louisiana is often funny, always moving, even harrowing. All Saints' Day brings us a writer of great talent, and Brent Benoit gives us a fascinating glimpse of a community not often written about and perhaps vanishing." Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce

Brent Benoit was born in 1974 and raised in South Louisiana. He works as both a writing teacher at Louisiana State University and a homebuilder in Baton Rouge where he lives with his wife, Meredith and their son William Luc. He is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from L.S.U. He is currently at work on his second novel.