The Lives of the Saints (Berridge short story collection)

The Lives of the Saints is a collection of short stories by Australian writer Edward Berridge published by University of Queensland Press (UQP) in 1995.

[1] Karen Brooks calls the book an example of grunge lit, an Australian literary genre from the 1990s.

In a 1998 article in the Australian Literary Studies journal, Karen Brooks called Berridge a grunge lit author and stated that along with Clare Mendes' Drift Street and Andrew McGahan's Praise, Berridge's book of stories "...explore[s] the psychosocial and psychosexual limitations of young sub/urban characters in relation to the imaginary and socially constructed boundaries defining...self and other" and "opening up" new "liminal [boundary] spaces" where the concept of an abject human body can be explored.

[2] Brooks states that Berridge's short stories provide "...a variety of violent, disaffected and often abject young people", characters who "...blur and often overturn" the boundaries between suburban and urban space.

[2] Brooks states that in Berridge's story "Bored Teenagers", the adolescents using a community drop-in centre decide to destroy its equipment and defile the space by urinating in it, thus "altering the dynamics of the place and the way" their bodies are perceived, with their destructive activities being deemed by Brooks to indicate the community centre's "loss of authority" over the teens.