The Lost Saints of Tennessee follows Ezekiel Cooper, a lonely middle-aged Southern working class man floundering after a divorce and the loss of his twin brother years ago in a drowning accident. Nothing is left for Ezekiel Cooper in his small town of Clayton, Tennessee. His wife Jackie marches out in a huff, taking his teen daughters with her, and his boss at his dead-end elevator part factory job shrugs, not seeming to care if he comes back. His truest friend, his twin brother Charlie, drowned years ago. So, he tosses his one treasured possession, a beat-up copy of Huckleberry Finn, into the back seat of his truck and drives off with his elderly dog.
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After visiting his mother Lillian, who lives in a senior care home and is dying of lung cancer, he heads for a cheap motel and, once inside, gives himself and his dog an overdose of sleeping pills. However, his suicide attempt fails when he vomits up the medicine, and he is forced to slog through life.
He drives on to his cousins in Virginia, who are slightly better off and raise horses. They took him in while he attended college, and open their spare bedroom to him once more.
A sudden storm comes up, and a neighbor lady, who is also divorced, takes shelter at their home. Ezekiel gets to know her over the next several weeks, and she teaches him, slowly, to overcome his fear of riding horses. He begins to fall for his neighbor, and the two start dating. The storm demolished his cousins' large apple orchards, and he also has work to do on the land.
Lillian narrates the next section, and we learn her history. A talented singer whose protective parents confined her mellifluous voice to the town church, she gets pregnant as a teenager with Ezekiel, his brother and later their sisters. She resigns herself to staying home and raising her kids and never leaving impoverished, lonely Clayton.
When Charlie is a young boy, Lillian fears he is not developing normally and takes him to a doctor. The physician tells her that he has some mental retardation, likely caused by an illness she had during pregnancy. Ezekiel does not care and remains his brother's best friend, sticking up for him to bullies.
Lillian struggles to raise her children on not very much money, and eventually has an affair with her husband's brother. This leads to tragedy: the brother comes to see her when he is drunk and runs over one of her toddler grandchildren. Before he can be arrested, he commits suicide.
Ezekiel begins dating Jackie, his now ex-wife, and she becomes pregnant while they are in high school. She has a miscarriage, and some say her losing the baby was a blessing in disguise because they will now be able to go to college rather than staying home to raise the baby. Eventually, Ezekiel receives a football scholarship to a decent college in Virginia, and moves in with his cousins. Soon after he leaves, however, some bullies beat up his brother outside a movie theater. Their parents avoid telling Ezekiel, sure he will drop out of college to be with Charlie if he finds out.
Seriously injured, Charlie spends weeks in the hospital. At last, he can go home but will require round-the-clock care. Lillian doesn't think she and the family can handle it, so she puts Charlie in a convalescent home, telling herself it's just temporary till she can figure out what else to do. When Ezekiel returns for Christmas break, he is furious to find Charlie still in the care home. He checks him out of there and brings him into an old shed on his parents' property, where he says the two of them will live from then on. He refuses to either return to college or speak to his mother again.
One day, he and his brother go swimming at a nearby lake, and he falls asleep for a bit. He awakens to find that his brother has drowned. Although Charlie could swim, he must have found some unusually deep or quickly rushing water.
The novel returns to the present day, where Ezekiel's new romance with his neighbor is progressing. However, he goes home for awhile and reconnects with Jackie. He finally confides in Jackie about how Carter died, and the two grieve, and sleep, together. She reveals that she's now divorced from the wealthier man for whom she left Ezekiel, and the two consider getting back together. Ezekiel also reconnects with his daughters, helping one of them through a nasty breakup from a guy who said cruel and untrue things about her.
Ezekiel's cousins offer him a long-term space in their home in exchange for him working around the place, and he must decide between staying in Virginia or returning to Tennessee. His girlfriend finds out about the night he spent with Jackie, and is very hurt. She forgives him but says he must choose between her and his ex-wife.
At last, he decides to remain in Virginia with Elle and his cousins. However, he finally forgives Lillian and Jackie and begins again to be a father to his children. "I'd rather they have a father who lives in Virginia than a father who isn't living at all," he says.
Best part of story, including ending:
This book portrays white Southern working class people as human beings, not stereotypical idiots, religious fanatics, or perverts. Readers can empathize with the characters and understand how and why they make the choices they do.
Best scene in story:
My favorite scene was when Ezekiel connected with his teenage daughters again after being away for several months. Honora, his oldest, was going through a nasty breakup and obsessed with baking cookies for a distraction. Ezekiel finally picked his way through the layers of flour and flying rolling pins in the kitchen to connect with her.
Opinion about the main character:
Ezekiel Cooper was a loyal brother who stood by his twin Charlie, even though he had received a full scholarship to college and his brother was mentally challenged.
