From Booklist
*Starred Review* Anyone not ensconced in a cave lately has heard the rumor that Mary Magdalene was literally the bride of Christ.
The Da Vinci Code (2003) popularized the theory sufficiently to make Magdalene pilgrimages big business in France, where she ostensibly established the French royal family. Magdalene fans are in for more surprises in Cunningham's classy, sexy novel, which embraces the Magdalene's reputation for prostitution to the extent of casting her as a sacred whore serving the goddess Isis. For Cunningham, Mary is Maeve, a big, strapping, redheaded Celt sold into slavery in Rome and bought for her ample charms by a renowned
domina (i.e., madam). Cunningham's big book is first an absorbing historical novel about down-and-dirty slave life in Rome and then a visionary fantasy about the Magdalene's life as Jesus' gentile wife. Besides Maeve's endearingly slutty second owner, Paulina, few characters participate in both, but in both are characters well known from other texts; for example, in the first the king of the "golden bough," in the second the Virgin Mary, who, holy though she is, is also quite dotty. Cunningham's wild, breakneck style only cements the suspicion that this will be--besides snapped up by Magdalene fans, Celtophiles, feminists, and lovers of a good yarn--controversial. Those unready for lesbianism
and sex with the Redeemer between the same covers may blanch as well as flush.
Patricia MonaghanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
For the millions of readers fascinated by Dan Brown's revelations about Mary Magdalen in The Da Vinci Code, here, at last, is their chance to meet the Gospel's most provocative woman face to face-on her own terms.
Make way for a new Magdalen. Born on a Celtic isle to eight warrior-witch mothers, Maeve is raised to be as brave as any hero. In her stubborn, enchanting voice, she recounts her perilous quest for the young man, Esus, whose life she once saved from druid sacrifice. Captured and sold to a Roman Madam, Maeve is sustained by a fierce sense of identity, compassion for her sister whores, and her unquenchable love. When she wins her freedom and finds her lost lover, a stormy life begins for both as we follow the Passion story through the eyes of Jesus's partner-disciple to no man. Not even the One she loves. By turns feisty and funny, outrageous and tender, this Celtic Mary Magdalen challenges all stereotypes, both old and New Age, and brings us to transforming encounter with the divine feminine made flesh.
Elizabeth Cunningham is the author of the novels The Return of the Goddess and The Wild Mother. She comes from nine generations of Episcopal priests. Though she managed to avoid becoming an Episcopal priest, she was ordained as an interfaith minister of spiritual counsel in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She balances writing with a counseling practice.
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