"Toibin is at his lyrical best in this beautiful and daring work" ("The New York Times Book Review") that portrays Mary as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity--shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.
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 who are her keepers. 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. In Toibin's stunning story, 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. In this "exquisite novella...Toibin gives a familiar story startling intimacy" ("The New Yorker") and shows us Mary as she "throws aside the blue veil of the Madonna to become wholly, gloriously human" (NPR Books).
