Review
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Title: Cigarettes & Saints
Author: Keira Shae
Publisher: Push Publications
Genre: Novel/Fictionalized biography
Year Published: 2024
Number of Pages: 729
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 979-8989388417
Price: 24.99
Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association of Mormon Letters
One of the best memoirs I have read is 2018’s How the Light Gets In by Keira Shae, published by BCC Press. It was a finalist for that year’s AML Creative Nonfiction award and deserved every plaudit it received. Many folks assume that Provo, Utah, is “Happy Valley” and the center place of all things overly Mormon. These people know little about or refuse to acknowledge the existence of Provo’s poor, dark side. In How the Light Gets In, Shae exposes Provo’s dark side as she tells of growing up in an abusive home, in the shadow of Mormonism and BYU, on the literal wrong side of the tracks in the bad part of Provo.[i] Cigarettes & Saints is a lightly fictionalized sequel that narrates the last several years of Shae’s adult life. It dramatizes her journey after the release of her memoir as she finds herself leaving Mormonism, her marriage, and everything familiar to her.
Cigarettes picks up after the publication of the memoir. Shae finds her life-changing in many ways. Her very Mormon husband is not happy anytime she explores her sexuality or watches an R-rated or mildly explicit movie. Shae meets a man named Jack, who is also a writer. They begin to correspond and share their writing. She becomes very infatuated with Jack and his approach to life. Their relationship and how he makes her question herself causes Shae to view her entire life through a new lens. She begins to confront her beliefs, her trauma, and everything she has experienced. For me, two passages succinctly sum up the book and what Shae starts to experience:
She started to see the beauty in simply loving a person and treasuring their body, notwithstanding their sex or gender. Complete connection. She could see her hand run up the curve of a girl’s waist and follow her ribs, her spine. Appreciate who she was in the moment. Not worry about right and wrong or commitments to each other, we all eventually break. Do as I pleased and craved, and she would know it was authentic. She was convinced there was something healing, not just in a lifelong commitment with marriage (because there was, she had had it), but also within lust. Within being completely seen and enjoyed in the moment, simply for what you are. No manipulative tricks, no drudgery and fake pleasantness masking white-knuckled endurance on some principle. Lust to lust. Adoration to adoration.
And later this passage:
Never mind. What I’ve wanted to say for so long that … I couldn’t … when I … When I read your writing, I umm … I just don’t feel alone. And umm … The reason for that is that I’m reading really personal things, really human things, but … I don’t know that they’re human. Because one reason I feel alone is that I don’t share things like this—not even with myself. I just pretend but they don’t exist and I don’t face it, I don’t tap into it. I don’t … I don’t even know how.
Shae’s experiences with Jack are transformative and lead to many discoveries. I’m reminded of the song lyric from the ’70s, “I’ve never been to me.” She discovers she has been many things for many people but has never been for herself. Her journey, as portrayed in Cigarettes & Saints, is fascinating, enlightening, and heartbreaking. It was not only transformative for her to experience; it was transformative for me as a reader. I gained new insights into myself, my relationships, my experiences, and my views of my one Mormonism.
While a Kindle version is available, Cigarettes & Saints is best experienced in the hardcopy. It is a very artistically designed book, and the physical presentation is as much a part of the story as the narrative is. The artistry starts with a cover design that immediately intrigues and grabs your attention. The design choices continue throughout the book. MOST stories are told entirely through the author’s choice of words. SOME will have the occasional illustration or picture that provides a physical image of a character or scene from the book as a point of reference or to help catch your attention. The graphics, pictures, and illustrations in Cigarettes & Saints are as much a part of the narrative as the words are. They are not just a depiction of events of the narrative; they are an essential part of it. SOME are included in the e-version, but not all. Another important part of the telling of Cigarettes & Saints is its graphic design. Every book I have read has been presented in one font type and point size. Occasionally, an emphasized word or two might be in bold or italics. In Shae’s presentation of her journey, the font, type, style, and spacing of type and text change as a part of the storytelling throughout the course of the book. The physical presentation of Cigarettes & Saints is just as important a part of the overall experience of the journey as the words to be read are.
Shae makes excellent use of language and metaphors. A couple of my favorites are “hock the loogee of guilt” and “velvet glove of indifference.” When describing her unfulfilled sexual needs in her marriage, Shae writes:
That part of Shae’s life was a shoebox tucked under their bed-only brought out for the both of them and in rare circumstances.
A couple of other favorites:
she discovered his chapters were damp and heavy with midnight emotions, but in person, she thought he felt as dry as a reed.
Jack vacillated between a desperate sogginess and a precise rifle shot.
These are just a few that I found more amusing or interesting. Shae’s language is very good, and her ability to craft sentences and paint images with her words is excellent.
At 729 pages, Cigarettes & Saints is a very thick book and a bit of commitment to read, but it is a commitment worth experiencing. Shae’s narrative is masterfully composed, imposing, and powerful. I would rank and compare Cigarettes & Saints (and How the Light Gets In) with other memoirs and fictionalized biographies I have read by some of my favorite authors. This includes such excellent books as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, and The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. I make this comparison both to the quality of these other powerful women writers as well as to Shae’s ability to frankly handle graphic and challenging subject matter relating to religion, sex, and abuse.
Cigarettes & Saints is a very challenging book, both in its content and how Shae’s journey is presented. SOME may not be willing to take the journey with her due to its style, Shae’s choice to include graphic language, or because of its erotic content. I can understand why these would challenge Mormon-associated readers. However, much like one is challenged and enlightened by the graphic content and presentation of Allison and Yuknavitch’s stories, I feel that these are essential elements to Shae’s story and that the growth and experience are worth it for the reader. They definitely were for me. The Mormon and Utah experience are different for everyone. For some, they are wonderful and enlightening. But for far too many, they are dark, challenging, and even harmful. Shae provides an important and necessary narrative that brings to light and provides discussion points about those dark and damaging sides.
A supplementary/side book is available as well. It is titled Cigarettes and Saints Poetry from the Novel. It is short, just over 70 pages. The poetry is brief and often graphic and reflects the novel’s themes. I found them to be thought-provoking and filled with intense imagery. Mormons have a very set way of thinking about life and sexuality, and Shae finds creative ways to challenge these ideas. The graphics include sketches, pictures of objects and buildings, and images of Shae herself. Some of them are close-ups, very close-ups, and abstract. It’s definitely worth picking up this thin volume as well.
There could be a few potentially challenging points for some readers of Cigarettes and Saints, but I would push back on all of them. First, it is on the long side; the print version I was sent is 729 pages long. That is a lot, but it’s not as long as it sounds due to a combination of the use of white space, frequent illustrations, and the various and sometimes large type fonts. BUT even if these were all “traditional” pages, the 729 pages would be worth reading. Shae’s prose is excellent, her narrative fascinating, and the points and questions she raises are well worth the long journey. Second, Shae frequently uses a stream-of-consciousness approach in the book. IF you are not used to it, this can be a challenge. I’ll admit to getting a little lost a few times. But this just made me dig deeper and enjoy the novel more. The best books stretch their readers, and I rank Cigarettes in that category. Third, frequent use of graphic language and graphic sexual content. This may turn a lot of Mormons off. But these elements are necessary to the narrative and play an essential role in how Shae experienced her exit from Mormonism and the trauma she faced. There are challenging things about Mormon culture that need to be addressed, and Shae takes them on in this book through these elements. Several references in the book will make a lot more sense to those with connections to Mormonism and Utah that may confuse “outside” readers at first, but I believe they will catch on quickly enough.
I thoroughly enjoyed and loved reading Cigarettes and Saints. It is one of my favorite books that I read in 2024 and has earned an important spot on my bookshelf. I highly recommend it.
[i] This is literal and not just a trite cliché. I know because I grew up in the same Provo neighborhood, just a few blocks from where Shae’s family lived. The north end of their apartment complex was just a few yards south of Provo’s railroad tracks and definitely on the “wrong side” of them.