Literary Fiction / Short Story Collection
Date Published: 09-16-2025
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
In 1970s and '80s Detroit, the city wrestles with an unending economic
downturn, increasing violence, and white exodus to the suburbs. Amid all of
this is twentysomething Mary who is just trying to grapple with her identity
in a world filled with uncertainty.
In this collection of linked stories, we follow Mary as she seeks to cope with and withstand hardship and confront her fears of exploitation, abuse, and death. Along the way, she delves into the complex yet nurturing relationships with her family and friends who teach her to love better, live fuller, and question power. The Patron Saint of Lost Girls presents an unflinching tale of life in the late twentieth-century postindustrial Midwest.
Interview with Maureen Aitken
What is your favorite part of the book?
My favorite parts of the book are the first story and the last. The start has such a constrained kind of hope and by the end there is more maturity and resonance with Mary as a person. She is more grounded and understands love in a different way.
Does your book have a lesson? Moral?
Resilience and a deeper understanding of love are two lessons in the collection.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
They come from the imagination, but the place and all the people I’ve loved influenced what I write and how I write.
Of all the characters you have created, which is your favorite and why?
Mary, the main character, is my favorite. And she is my favorite when she is funny. It’s dark humor, but it’s there.
What character in your book are you least likely to get along with?
The mean girls in “The Family Trip” are the people I most dislike today. I still see that kind of cruel dismissal as an adult. It’s terrible.
What would the main character in your book have to say about you?
“She needs to write me into a vacation in France. What about a story in Martha’s Vinyard?”
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Friendship, sisterhood, creativity, courage, and love are ideas that I might write about forever.
About the Author
Maureen Aitken’s short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost
Girls, received a Kirkus star, the Nilsen Prize, and the Foreword Review INDIE
Gold Prize for General Fiction. It will be reissued in September, 2025 by
Wayne State University Press. Her stories have earned a Minnesota State Arts
Board’s Artist Initiative Grant, a Loft Mentor Award, an award from
Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. It
was also nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. Her stories have been published
in Prairie Schooner and New Letters, among others. This is her second story
featured in The Missouri Review’s Blast section.
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