'Ten Thousand Saints' an Eye-Opening Debut

Eleanor Henderson's eye-opening <em>Ten Thousand Saints</em> is an emotional tale filled with vulnerable young characters amid hard-edged settings. <em>Ten Thousand Saints</em> tells the story of Jude Keffy-Horn, a young boy coming of age in Vermont in the late 1980s who spends much of his time getting high and engaging in petty thievery with his best friend, Teddy. After Teddy tragically dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude is sent to live with his pot-dealing father in New York City's East Village, where he stumbles upon the straight-edge youth culture. Jude strives to honor Teddy's memory through his new, militantly clean lifestyle alongside Teddy's half-brother Johnny and their new friend Eliza (who happens to be carrying Teddy's baby), but his addiction to straight-edge culture comes with its own consequences.<br /><br />As these teens struggle to find themselves, their parents also attempt to make meaning out of their lives and past mistakes. <em>Ten Thousand Saints </em>follows these friends and their parents from 1987 through 2006, a journey that includes life in Vermont and the East Village and involves the straight-edge music scene and the AIDS epidemic.<br /><br />Henderson, who received her MFA from the University of Virginia, teaches at Ithaca College in New York. Her fiction has appeared in <em>AGNI</em>, <em>North American Review</em> and <em>Indiana Review</em>, among other publications, and her nonfiction has appeared in <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> and <em>Virginia Quarterly Review</em>. <em>Ten Thousand Saints</em> is her first novel. Henderson will appear at <strong>Boswell Book Co.</strong> on Feb. 29 at 7 p.m.