Customer Reviews

The Singing of Swans

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Mary Saracino's novel, The Singing of Swans, is so chock full of goddess lore I am tempted to keep it for a reference book. The author has crammed her story with well-researched information about the Dark Mother, Cybele, or Demeter, who she calls "humankind's first deity, and our most ancient memory."

The story begins with Ziza, a woman who flies through the roof of her house on a night in September, 1575 and meets with other "keepers of the blood ways," shamans, healers, herbalists and astral travelers. They are the Benandanti, and four times a year they leave their bodies to battle the Malandanti, their arch enemies, thus ensuring a bountiful harvest.

In the second chapter, we meet Madalene Ross, a workaholic software specialist in Minneapolis who smokes, drinks and is troubled by strange dreams of old women chanting and holding handfuls of herbs.

Soon she is stalked by a homeless woman who appears out of nowhere and tells Maddie "Your Mother wants to talk to you." And then Madalene finds a note that says "Go to the Lake" written in her own handwriting.

In her closet, in a box her deceased mother saved for her, Maddie finds a notebook labeled "Rossolino Family Tree" and a small figure of the Virgin Mother with dark skin. Still troubled by disturbing dreams of women healers, Madalene suddenly loses her job in a corporate downsizing. She gives in to an overwhelming desire to travel to Pergusa, Italy, in search of her family's roots.

Meanwhile, the author takes us back to the women of the Benandanti as they struggle through the years. The leaders of the Catholic Church try to demolish their traditions and force them to conform to church teachings. Some of their tactics are violent, but the women persevere. In secret, they keep their worship of the Dark Mother alive. She is called the Black Madonna by all who join them, accepting her as the virgin mother of Jesus, which the church allows. But in secret, they worship her as the Divine She, a deity in her own right.

I first learned about the Black Madonna as a child, when I saw a painting of her in my Polish Catholic church. I was told that in the original painting in Czestochowa, Poland, her skin was blackened in a fire. Imagine my surprise and joy to discover, as an adult woman, that her image is older than the Church and can be found throughout the world. Most recently, I visited another Black Madonna in a four-hundred-year old church in Puerto Rico, and was told her skin was darkened by the sun.

Back in the present time, Madalene arrives in Pergusa and finds the lake is dying from pollution. She meets an eco-feminist working to save the lake. In a dream, she meets Ziza and the other ancient women, learns about the long tradition of the Dark Mother and talks with her own mother, who urges her to use her intuition, which she has always ignored, as well as her brain.

Madalene realizes what she needs is to reclaim her self, in all its complexity, just as others are reclaiming Lake Pergusa. For me, she is a stand-in for women as a whole, throughout history, especially in times of patriarchy. Saracino is realistic in her portrayal of the violence of women's struggle for personal power and self-determination in ancient times. We would do well to remember this and realize that even today, voiceless women suffer at the hands of male-dominated societies around the world, a story we don't often see on the evening news.

Without being heavy-handed or taking political sides, Saracino educates the reader about women's spirituality, herbalism and Italian culture and traditions, while keeping us turning the pages, rooting for Madalene and following her adventures to the conclusion.

Linda C. Wisniewski, Author of Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage
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I could not put The Singing of Swans down. From the first page, I was hooked. There are plots within plots, characters to fall in love with, all twisting and dancing together to delight and inspire the reader. I felt transported to ancient Sicily and completely caught up in the lives of the Healers, Priestesses and followers of the Black Madonna.
Mary does an excellent job of making their lives and experiences personal and real to the reader. It is rare that a book will so totally capture my attention - I found myself thinking about the characters while performing the mundane details of my own life. I was so absorbed in the story that I began to feel like Ziza, Ibla, Fiora, Madalene and the others had become my friends and family.
The Singing of Swans is a well researched book and I highly recommend it to everyone. You will be entertained and enriched by the history of a culture and time almost forgotten. Bravo Mary, This is a great book!

I read Mary Saracino's novel, The Singing of the Swans, because one of her stories won the second Glass Woman Prize, a literary prize have I created for women writers.
I am impressed by the courage of both the author and the publisher to create a book that goes beyond the usually recommended writing formula of conflict to climax to resolution.
This is a braided story of women spanning two millennia, from pre-Christian ancient Rome to contemporary Chicago and Sicily. The writing made me feel at home in the different eras, satisfying some of the longing I have as a woman to have our women's story told, which is not a the typical history of worship of war and death, oppression and domination, but a story of reverence for life and stewardship of life. I was especially impressed with both the boldness and the restraint with which some of the atrocities inflicted on women were treated in the text.
On a personal note, and a tribute to the author's craft, I had a chill go down my spine two sentences before the protagonist of the moment had a chill go up her spine.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in goddess lore and women's stories from a woman's perspective, and I look forward to Mary Saracino's future work.

the singing of the swans is a book that captivated and mesmerized me. i loved that i could be trasnported back and forth into such different time periods and places without a passport, into the the worlds of rosalina and the high priestesses, ilba and the black madonna, and madalene with her caffeine infused life which would soon take on a new meaning. mary writes with such clarity and color, that i could feel the ground and stones under my own feet. this is a wonderful read and left me with wanting more. i wish that i too could fly...

I am a fan of Mary Saracino's poetry, so I was delighted to read this novel. And I was definitely not disappointed. The writing rings with purpose, passion, power and poetry. I love her description of the Feminine Divine, The Great Goddess, the Black Madonna, as the Divine She. Sicily has long been high on my list of must-do pilgrimages, and now it is so much more real and enticing to me. I'd leave tomorrow if I could! Though I have long been an avid researcher and devotee of the The Goddess, Saracino's depictions give Her life in a new and enchanting way. I highly recommend this lovely book for those who already know and love the Divine She and also for those who are not yet acquainted with Her. All readers are in for a real treat.