A provocative imagining of the later years of the mother of Jesus finds her living a solitary existence in Ephesus years after her son's crucifixion and struggling with guilt, anger, and feelings that her son is not the son of God and that His sacrifice was not for a worthy cause. - (Baker & Taylor)

A provocative imagining of the later years of the mother of Jesus finds her living a solitary existence in Ephesus years after her son's crucifixion and struggling with guilt, anger and feelings that her son is not the son of God and that His sacrifice was not for a worthy cause. By the award-winning author of The Master. 25,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín's provocative, haunting, and indelible 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'her keepers, who provide her with food and shelter and visit 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 is equally harsh on her judgement of others. This woman who 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. - (Simon and Schuster)

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín's provocative, haunting, and indelible 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—her keepers, who provide her with food and shelter and visit 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 is equally harsh on her judgement of others. This woman who 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. - (Simon and Schuster)

Colm Tóibín is the author of ten novels, including 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. - (Simon and Schuster)

Colm Tóibín is the author of ten novels, including 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. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York. - (Simon and Schuster)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Acclaimed Irish novelist Tóibín (The Master, 2004, among others), in an audacious move, submits a novelization of the later years of a figure less historical than symbolic that is readable in one sitting, which brings its brilliance into even finer focus.Mary, the mother of Jesus, sits in uncooperative silence in the ancient biblical town of Ephesus as she is hounded by her son's apostles, who are desperate for memories she can share with them to aid in their intention to write about Jesus' life (in what, of course, will become the four Gospels of the New Testament). Mary insists that she remembers nothing. The truth is, she is flooded by memories, and with great articulation and introspection, she supplies us with a first-person narrative that will surprise and fascinate readers used to a more traditionally kind and gentle Virgin Mary. Of the apostles, Mary recalls "a group of misfits." Her impression of her son's ministry is that it was not simply boring but also artificial. He was radiant and powerful in human interaction, yes, but she scoffs at the notion of him being the son of God. She does understand that her son's agony and death on the cross were the denouement of a planned program "for the sake of the future," and she admits that she did not wait at the foot of the cross for him to die but instead fled the scene out of fear for her safety. But of his gruesome end, she proposes to the apostles, "When you say that he redeemed the world, I will say that it was not worth it." A stunning interpretation that is as beautiful in its presentation as it is provocative in its intention. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Tóibín has become a literary star of the first order, twice shortlisted for the Mann Booker Prize. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.