The Magdalen (Paperback)

by Marita Conlon-McKenna (Author) "Esther heard the cry, clear across the scattered fields of Carraig Beag, the voice catching on the iodine-scented breeze blowing in from the wild Atlantic..." (more)
Key Phrases: Sister Gabriel, Father Brendan, Sister Bridget (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Holy Saints Magdalen Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women was a prisonlike institution in Dublin where unmarried pregnant women were sent in shame until they delivered, after which, without exception, the church took their babies away for adoption. In 1951, Esther Doyle of rural Connemara has no thoughts of such a place when she escapes her grim home life her drunken fisherman father is drowned, and her mother can't cope with Esther's young retarded sister for a brief romance that leaves her pregnant. In desperation, she turns to the Home, where she soon discovers that living conditions are nearly unbearable. The mostly unsympathetic and even cruel nuns oversee a sweatshop-like laundry in which women slave every day except on Sundays. The nuns refer to them as "penitents," but the women sardonically called themselves "Maggies." Through it all, the women are bolstered by their camaraderie. After Esther has her baby, reluctantly surrendering it, she leaves but refuses to return to her family, which has rejected her. The first half of the book, telling of Esther's beginnings, rings true, but it is familiar and overlong. The real tale is the story of the Magdalen Home, a cruel institution the church maintained into the mid-20th century. The straightforward writing is without flourish, but the story is powerful and moving and Esther's unhappy experience will remain with the reader. (Mar.)same story was dramatized by Patricia Burke Brogan in a popular play, Eclipsed, first performed in Great Britain in 1992.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
"This book pulls no punches . . . Marita Conlon-McKenna is breaking new ground with The Magdalen." --Image
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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (March 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765305135
• ISBN-13: 978-0765305138
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #743,613 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful historical morality tale, March 6, 2002

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 1952 Dublin in the birthing room of the Sisters of the Holy Saints Magdalen Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women, between contractions Esther Doyle thinks back on how she ended amongst the abandoned. Esther knows that in spite of her family rejection due to her unmarried pregnancy and her lover's betrayal she is a good person. From western Ireland, since arriving in the grim place, she wonders if she will ever see the ocean with her child.

Esther has earned her room, board, and medical assistance doing laundry while waiting the birth. She knows her child will reside next door in the almost as grim orphanage, but at least the infant will have sustenance. However, she knows her unborn will receive little else as even the nuns reject the infant's innocence in spite their lofty calling. Still Esther has learned from her sister "Maggies" and dreams of a life for herself with her child outside this convent prison.

With the acceptance of out of wedlock children in recent years, THE MAGDALEN may seem obsolete, but instead, the novel is a powerful historical tale that sheds a light on 1950s morality. The story line brilliantly written in a first person dialogue enables the audience to feel all that Esther feels as she garners empathy from modern day readers to the plights of her and her soon to be born child in a world that condemns even the blameless. Marita Conlon-Mckenna provides fans of mid twentieth century historical novels with a juggernaut of a morality tale that is one of the genre's best in recent years.

Harriet Klausner

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wayward Girls and Fallen Women, December 3, 2003

By	Kelly A. fuller "certified book nut" (Pennsville, New Jersey) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Esther Doyle is unmarried and pregnant, in the rustic, rural town of Connemara. Her lover has jilted her at the first words of the unwanted pregnancy. Esther is left alone to deal with the scandal. However, the only people Esther expected help from, her family, are ashamed and resentful. Her mother and brothers banish her from the home, sending her to Dublin.

Esther's new home is The Magdalen Home for Wayward and Fallen Home. A laundry, run by nuns, is where she will earn her keep. When her nine months have passed, her baby will taken from her and given up for adoption. Esther and the other women work long, hard hours on their feet and are under the constant watch of the nuns. The women live the lives of prisoners. There is no recreation, no fun. The women are there to pay penance for their sins and ask God for forgiveness. However, these women, otherwise knows as "The Maggies" manage to form strong frienships. Their companionship allows Esther to fight her way out of a deep depression and struggle to reclaim her life. The Maggies help Esther to realize that her baby deserves a happy life and so does she.

I have read quite a few books about the famous "Magdalen Laundries" that were once popular in Ireland. Many are dark and depressing. However, The Magdalen, is slightly more uplifting than most. Of course, this is not exactly a happy story, but these laundries did exist and it is something that many people have never heard of.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE MAGDALEN SISTERS..., May 1, 2005

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

It is little wonder that this book was a number one bestseller in Ireland, as it deals with a shameful episode in its history, that of the Magdalen Laundries. Run by the Catholic Church, these were homes that were set up for "fallen" women. Originally set up for prostitutes, they devolved more into homes for unwed mothers. Young women, many of whom were teenagers, who found themselves unwed and pregnant, were often sent there by their families. They would then work in the adjacent laundry of the home until they gave birth, at which time the child would be removed to an orphanage and placed for adoption.

Many of these young women, called penitents by the Catholic Church, were often deserted by their families. They would then find themselves living a lifetime of servitude in the Magdalen Laundries for their transgression. That these laundries existed until 1996 is, in and of itself, scandalous and almost incomprehensible. This book gives a fictional account of such a woman. It is through her eyes that the reader sees the travesty that was known as the Magdalen Laundries.

Esther Doyle was one such woman. She lived an isolated life in rural Connemara, where she was forced by her father to leave school at an early age, in order to help her mother around the house, after her mother gave birth to mentally challenged child in 1944. An intelligent but naive young girl, Esther would spend her days helping her mother and taking care of her baby sister, Nora Pat. After her father disappeared one night, while fishing at sea, and was later washed ashore, having drowned, life became hard for the Doyle family. Yet, left penniless, they managed to survive.

In 1951, Esther, now a pretty teenager, met a young, handsome ne'er-do-well named Conor O'Hagan at a dance. As he was not a local, having just moved to Connemara from West Cork, her family viewed him with some misgivings. Still, Esther found herself in the throes of first love with this young man, only to later find herself pregnant by him and then betrayed, when she discovered that he was also seeing someone else whom he intended to marry.

Coupled with the fact that her younger sister, left momentarily unattended, died an unnecessary death, Esther's mother was less than sanguine about Esther's condition when it was discovered. Reviled by her mother and her brothers for the shame that her condition would bring upon the family, Esther was spirited away by her Aunt Patsy and sent to the Holy Saints Convent in Dublin. While there, she would work in its infamous Magdalen Laundry to earn her keep, while she awaited the birth of her baby.

At the Holy Saints Convent and its Magdalen Laundry, Esther would discover what hell on earth was. Harshly treated, given only the minimum of food necessary to survive, Esther would spend her days toiling in the hot, steamy laundry, along with other such women with whom she bonded in a unique sisterhood. Some of them were women who had spent their entire lives there. Some were the victims of rape and incest, while others were simply young, unwed mothers such as Esther. All were subject to the reign of terror orchestrated by the nuns who ran the Magdalen Laundry.

It is at the Magdalen Laundry, however, that Esther's world view is broadened. It is through her suffering at the hands of those whom she had supposed would have protected her that Esther truly comes of age. When her child is born, Esther comes to think of herself as a person independent of her family and finds the courage to realize for herself a vision of a new life. She envisions one outside the walls of the Magdalen Laundry and one beyond that of the family who had so cruelly renounced her in her hour of need.

This book is written is crisp, clear, terse prose, with little sentimentality. It is a straightforward story that has overtones of the melancholia that often permeates Irish Catholicism. For this book, such is simply fitting. This is a wonderful book that places one of Catholic Ireland's most shameful secrets on public display in a fictionalized setting that perfectly showcases it.

Those readers who are interested in this subject matter will also enjoy the film, "The Magdalen Sisters", which also fictionalizes life in the Magdalen Laundries. One should view it on dvd, because the dvd contains a heartbreaking British documentary, "Sex in a Cold Climate", which contains actual footage of the Magdalen Laundries and interviews of three survivors of the Magdalen Laundry experience.