The Testament of Mary (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781451688382)

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.

Author: Colm Toibin
ISBN-10: 1451688385
ISBN-13: 9781451688382
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Language: English
Published: 11/13/2012
Pages: 96
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.90w x 0.60d
Award: Man Booker Prize - Nominee

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 06/15/2012 pg. 48
Publishers Weekly 07/23/2012 pg. 29
Booklist 09/01/2012 pg. 56
Library Journal 09/01/2012 pg. 95
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2012
New York Times Book Review 11/11/2012 pg. 14
New York Times Book Review 11/18/2012 pg. 26
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/02/2012 pg. 25
Entertainment Weekly 12/14/2012 pg. 79
New Yorker (The) 12/17/2012 pg. 81
New York Review of Books 01/10/2013 pg. 43
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2013 pg. 9
New York Times Book Review 02/09/2014 pg. 16

About the Author
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.