Bright Dark Madonna: A Novel (The Maeve Chronicles) [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Cunningham (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Maeve Chronicles | Publication Date: April 1, 2009

“The best one yet!”—Catherine MacCoun, author of On Becoming an Alchemist

"As usual, Cunningham provides plenty of juicy controversy embodied by vivid characters and expressed in vigorous action, all in crisply drawn biblical settings."—Booklist

"Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of the all-too-human foibles of the Church fathers is a hoot." Kirkus Reiews

""Elizabeth Cunningham has again delved into her fabulous treasure trove of impeccable research, and come up with gold. In Bright Dark Madonna, her interweaving of Biblical-Celtic themes brings the first century to life with unexpected freshness and many surprises." —Katherine Neville, author of The Eight and The Fire

After playing an intimate role in the mystery of the Resurrection, what is left for Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen? Never a follower, will she emerge as a leader of the early church? Will she retire quietly to mother a sacred bloodline? Will she set sail for France to proselytize and go spelunking? The answer: all and none of the above. No sooner does Maeve open her mouth to preach the gospel her way than a fierce debate begins about what to do with the child she is carrying. Maeve has her own ideas about where best to raise the savior’s scion. When she returns to Temple Magdalen, the holy whorehouse she founded, a custody battle of biblical proportions ensues. Maeve, her infant daughter Sara, and Jesus’ mother flee to the remote Taurus Mountains where they live in hiding among the Galatians until a mysterious man is dumped on their doorstep more dead than alive. When Maeve discovers the identity of the man she has healed, she is appalled and determined to keep her family’s secret. But Maeve has reckoned without the will of her brilliant, angry adolescent daughter who resolves to find out the truth about her father—for herself.

Required reading for fans and accesible to those new to The Maeve Chronicles, Bright Dark Madonna takes the reader on a breathtaking journey from the temple porticoes of Jerusalem, to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, to the south of France, and, as always, to the treacherous, beautiful terrain of the human heart.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Best know for her pagan novels, The Return of the Goddess and The Wild Mother, (Station Hill), Elizabeth Cunningham is the direct descendant of nine generations of Episcopal priests. She was ordained as an interfaith minister in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She balances writing with a counseling practice.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing (April 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979882877
• ISBN-13: 978-0979882876
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #424,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Cunningham is the direct descendant of nine generations of Episcopal priests. She grew up hearing rich (sometimes terrifying) liturgical and biblical language. When she was not in church or school, she read fairytales and fantasy novels or wandered in the enchanted wood of an overgrown, abandoned estate next door to the rectory. Her religious background, the magic of fairytales, and the numinous experience of nature continue to inform her work.

After being altogether too good and studious during her earliest years, Cunningham was expelled from a progressive boarding school for nudity. She subsequently earned a GED and went on to The College of General Studies at Boston University. From there she transferred to Harvard-Radcliffe College where she graduated in 1976 with BA in English and American language and literature. Somehow, she resisted the temptation to go to seminary to study for the Episcopal priesthood. The possibility was especially tempting, because, at that time, ordination of women was not allowed. When the church ruled in favor of women's ordination a few months later, she heaved a sigh of relief and went on writing The Wild Mother, her first novel, hailed by Publishers Weekly as a beguiling tour de force.

The Passion of Mary Magdalen, the centerpiece of The Maeve Chronicles, is Cunningham's fifth novel, and the book she believes she was born to write. Her other novels include The Return of the Goddess, a Divine Comedy; The Wild Mother; and How to Spin Gold, a Woman's Tale (re-released by Epigraph, May 2009). Magdalen Rising, the prequel to The Passion of Mary Magdalen was published in 2007. Bright Dark Madonna, the sequel, was published in April 2009. Red-Robed Priestess, the fourth and final Maeve Chronicle, was published in Novemeber, 2011.

Cunningham is also the author of two collections of poetry Small Bird, and Wild Mercy.

Although Cunningham managed to avoid becoming an Episcopal priest, she graduated from The New Seminary in 1997 and was ordained as an interfaith minister and counselor. Both The Maeve Chronicles and her interfaith ministry express Cunningham's profound desire to reconcile her Christian roots with her call to explore the divine feminine.

Since her ordination, Cunningham has been in private practice as a counselor and maintains that the reading and writing of novels has been as important to this work as her seminary training.

The mother of grown children, Cunningham lives with her husband in the Hudson Valley.

Elizabeth (and Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen) can be followed on twitter, on her blog and on facebook. The links follow:

http://elizabethandmaeve.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61625329756&ref=ts

http://twitter.com/EliznMaeve

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Magdalen for Peace, March 29, 2009

By 

Dr. Susan Corso "a.k.a. Shulamith Burton, aut... (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bright Dark Madonna: A Novel (The Maeve Chronicles) (Hardcover)

Maeve (rhymes with rave) the magnificent Magdalen is back! She is ever so welcome.

The third novel of The Maeve Chronicles, Bright Dark Madonna, tells the story of the third chapter in the life of the Celtic Magdalen. It takes us through the formation and establishment of the early church, and it tells the heart-breaking (to me) story of how Mary Mags, as she is known in my house, got written out of herstory. At the beginning of the third book, Maeve--the gentile whore/goddess/ widow of Jesus--is pregnant, and none too sure of her place in Jesus' history.

As the novel progresses, Maeve attains the age I am now, and I was fascinated by her desire for peace. Peace in herself. Peace in her relationships. Peace in her world. And, peace with her own story. One of the things that each of us faces as we grow older, and hopefully wiser, is whether to let our story die with us, or to tell our story so that future generations will learn it and learn from it. This Maeve is no exception.

Telling the story of one's life is part of what allows us to make peace with that story--with the parts we played, the parts we didn't, the parts others played, and those they didn't. Storytelling is Elizabeth Cunningham's supreme gift, and as we witness Maeve's process with raising her daughter, and coming to terms with her true place in the story, we see a vision of a woman lost. Her post-resurrection Christ Jesus speaks to her from the inside out, "Being lost is the way, how else can you be found. How else can you find what you have lost: sheep, coins, love?"

The path, anyone's path, is the path of becoming lost in order that one might find oneself. So to all of us who have ever felt lost, Cunningham delivers through Bright Dark Madonna the supreme advice for the spiritual life: if you feel lost, you're doing it right. Perfectly right.

That is the heart-opening lesson of the bright, dark, wild, wonderful, lost-and-found Maeve Magdalen.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet another great read from Elizabeth Cunningham, April 16, 2009

By 

Teresa M. Luttrell (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bright Dark Madonna: A Novel (The Maeve Chronicles) (Hardcover)

I've loved each book of the Maeve chronicles so far and look forward to the fourth. I wondered if 'Bright Dark Madonna' would hold my interest after the culmination of 'the story' (as we knew it) in the second book of the series; it did, and then some. Cunningham is a gifted weaver of myth, fantasy and historic bits, which she combines with an empowering and well-crafted vision of a very human Mary Magdalene. You won't regret this one.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Gospel of Flesh, April 15, 2009

By 

Mick McAllister - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bright Dark Madonna: A Novel (The Maeve Chronicles) (Hardcover)

The Maeve Chronicles were the great literary discovery for me last year. After reading ten pages of Magdalene Rising in a book store, I ordered both books in the series. I read the entirety of Magdalene Rising avidly, and then made my way through the denser but no less enjoyable The Passion of Mary Magdalene. When I was done, I had a year's impatient waiting for Bright Dark Madonna, and now, done with that, another wait. Sigh.

Bright Dark Madonna follows Maeve/Magdalene from the death of Jesus to the maturity, about 20 years later, of their daughter Sara. Like the previous book, it offers an alternative version of the roots of Christianity that is well-researched, clearly described, and fascinating. Those familiar with the "lore" of Mary Magdalene will recognize most of the ideas in this book. I've not encountered a writer who has put them together more coherently and attractively. And even if that were not so, Maeve is a unique, feminist voice worth hearing regardless of her story.

Personally, as someone no more engaged with Christianity than I am with Sufi or the cult of Omfala the Dancing Eland, I was sorry to see traditional Christianity treated as sympathetically as it is here, but it comes with the territory. Cunningham is, after all, not merely a Christian but a Christian minister. And as much as I would prefer a Maeve who spurns Christianity, what she does instead is persuasive and consistent with her love for Jesus.

Bright Dark Madonna gets us to a cave in the south of France. It gives us a picture of Mary the Mother of Jesus (or "the Queen of Heaven," as she prefers to be called) that is the most singular charm of the book. It weaves traditional and "alternative" church history into a garment that fits (or doesn't) heretics and the orthodox. It is a love story garbed in mysticism at once New Age and Gnostic (and, without a word about it, gives us a clue about the origin of "The Gospel of Mary"). It will offend the fundamentalist believer vastly more than it does the confirmed skeptic.

But the love of Jesus and Mary is an old heresy, and what Cunningham makes of it is luminous and enchanting. Her Gnostic souls are emanant enough to give a wonderful ambiguity (stolen, by the way, from D. H. Lawrence) to the idea of "the risen Lord." Sara may have been conceived after Jesus' death, but she is a creature of blessed flesh and blood, as is her dear mother.

This is my Magdalene; I can't thank Elizabeth Cunningham enough for giving her a voice and a story to tell, at last.