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by Colm Toibin
Provocative, haunting and indelible, Colm Tóibín's portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.
In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel. They are her keepers, providing her with food and shelter and visiting her regularly. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God; nor that his death was "worth it"; nor that the "group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye," were holy disciples.
Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the Cross until her son died - she fled, to save herself), and her judgment of others is equally harsh. This woman whom we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone. Tóibín's tour de force of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed.
"Poigniant...This beautiful novella turns on who or what Mary should believe about her son's life and death - and on a mother's grief." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A stunning interpretation that is as beautiful in its presentation as it is provocative in its intention." - Booklist
"Starred Review. A novella that builds to a provocative climax, one that is as spiritually profound as its prose is plainspoken...A work suffused with mystery and wonder." - Kirkus Reviews
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Photo: Bruce Weber
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.
Name Pronunciation
Colm Toibin: CULL-um Toe-BEAN
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Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.
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