![]() He is the author of six novels, including The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award, and two collections of stories, Mothers and Sons and The Empty Family.īeautifully haunting. 'A beautiful and daring takes its power from the surprise of its language, its almost shocking characterization' Mary Gordon, New York TimesĬolm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. 'Depicting the harrowing losses and evasions that can go on between mothers and sons.Tóibín creates a reversed Pièta: he holds the mother in his arms' Independent It is as tragic as a Spanish pieta, but it is completely heretical.Tóibín maintains all the dignity of Mary without subscribing to the myths that have accumulated around her' Edmund White, Irish Times 'This is a short book, but it is as dense as a diamond. In her effort to tell the truth in all its gnarled complexity, she slowly emerges as a figure of immense moral stature as well as a woman from history rendered now as fully human.Ĭolm Tóibín's The Testament of Mary is the moving story of the Virgin Mary, told by a novelist famous for writing brilliantly about the family. To her he was a vulnerable figure, surrounded by men who could not be trusted, living in a time of turmoil and change.Īs her life and her suffering begin to acquire the resonance of myth, Mary struggles to break the silence surrounding what she knows to have happened. ![]() For Mary, her son has been lost to the world, and now, living in exile and in fear, she tries to piece together the memories of the events that led to her son's brutal death. Tey think I do not understand what is slowly growing in the world they think I do not see the point of their ques- tions and do not notice the cruel shadow of exasperation that comes hooded in their faces or hidden in their voices when I say something vague or foolish, something which leads us nowhere.An extract from the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Testament of Mary, the powerful new novel by Colm Tóibín, read by Meryl Streep.įrom the author of Brooklyn, in a voice that is both tender and filled with rage, The Testament of Mary tells the story of a cataclysmic event which led to an overpowering grief. The novel is written from the point of view of Mary, mother of Jesus, reflecting in her old age on her son's life and the claims he was a messiah. The book was published on 13 November 2012 by Scribner's. And it is enough for me to know that it will end. The Testament of Mary is a short novel by Irish writer Colm Tibn. Before the final rest comes this long awakening. I will come down these stairs as the dawn breaks, as the dawn insinuates its rays of light into this room. Maybe my eyes know that soon they will be closed for ever. Maybe I do not need to dream, or need to rest. Or there is nothing further to be gained from sleep. Tey think that I do not know the elaborate nature of their desires. I am being cared for, and questioned softly, and watched. Tere is something hungry and rough in them, a bru- tality boiling in their blood, which I have seen before and can smell as an animal that is being hunted can smell. Hey appear more often now, both of them, and on every visit they seem more impatient with me and with the world. ![]() 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. 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. 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. 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. They are her keepers, providing her with food and shelter and visiting her regularly. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel. ![]() In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son’s crucifixion. ![]() From the Booker Prize-nominated author of THE MASTER comes an indelible portrayal of 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. ![]()
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