A moving study of the healing power of religious devotion.
A woman tries to exorcise her demons by exploring the ancient roots of her Christian faith in this heartfelt tale of remorse and redemption.
Middle-aged history professor Madeleine Seymour has an outwardly contented life, but she is still haunted, decades after the fact, by the death of her young daughter Mollie, who drowned in a plastic pool when Madeleine was momentarily distracted. Tormented by nightmares of Mollie and an irrational jealousy of other mothers, Madeleine seeks the counsel of her Anglican pastor Father Rinaldi, who sends Madeleine and her husband Jack on a trip to Italy to its Catholic shrines. Following Rinaldi’s itinerary around the country, from mighty St. Peter’s basilica to humbler country churches, they take in Catholicism at its gaudiest, with its miracle stories and relics and incorruptible remains displayed under glass. Along the way, Madeleine muses on the exploits of the saints, from St. Francis of Assisi’s reception of the stigmata, to the 13-year-old virgin martyr St. Agnes’ execution for refusing to marry a pagan, to St. Clare’s success in putting an army of marauding Saracens to flight by holding up the Reserved Sacrament. This might be mere colorful travelogue to another tourist, but Madeleine takes it very seriously. Alarmed at her growing obsession, a skeptical Jack introduces her to a psychiatrist, who turns out to be a shallow, condescending secularist who ridicules Madeleine’s “spiritual fantasies.” But as foreign as it is to modern sensibilities, and to her Protestant background, Madeleine finds that Catholic lore speaks to her. With its iconography of blood and sacrifice, its stories of suffering and death transmuted into hope and rebirth, it reveals lessons for coping with her long-festering grief and guilt. Balancing spiritual exaltation with psychological realism, Sunderland’s limpid prose makes Madeleine’s journey both gripping and believable.
A moving study of the healing power of religious devotion.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-60290-051-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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