Reviews for The Passion of Mary Magdalen

"The Passion of Mary Magdalen is a tour de force, an exploration of the feminine divine. It breaks all the rules and blows all the concepts. This book is for those who have heart-drenched minds."
-Mailbu Chronicle, Aug 06

“The Passion of Mary Magdalen explodes off the page with its tales of love, hope, power, and redemption, making it a great read for a wide variety of people - book clubs looking for a great discussion, take note.”
-The Book Brothel. com

"The book becomes a gospel in itself...anyone who reads it will never approach the canon the same way again. The Passion of Mary Magdalen is a tour de force."
-Episcopal Life Magazine, April 2006

"The Passion offers a digestive to Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ,” and a fascination way beyond Dan Brown’s exploitation of this Mary’s story in The DaVinci Code."
-Pages Magazine, May 2006

“Magdalene fans are in for more surprises in Cunningham's classy, sexy novel...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.”
-Booklist, Feb. 2006, starred review

"Cunningham weaves Hebrew scripture, Celtic and Egyptian mythology, and early Christian legend into a nearly seamless whole, creating an unforgettable fifth gospel story in which the women most involved in Jesus's ministry are given far more representation..."
-Library Journal

“This epic, stunningly original work… a roaring good read.”
-Foreword Magazine, May 2006

“Cunningham's rich imaginings of Magdalen's life as a Roman sex slave and as Christ's lover are as compelling as they are controversial.”
-Chronogram, April 2006

"Ironically, though many will condemn Elizabeth Cunningham's work as blasphemy and irreverent, the well written and entertaining THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN is actually virtuous, spiritual and relevant as God's tenets inclusive with room for everyone."
-Amazon's #1 reviewer, Harriet Klausner's ***** review

"If your interest in Mary M was whetted by The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the freshness of this Mary Magdalen's feisty wisdom...This book is more than a gulp-it-down, page-turning great read: it is a transformative experience."
-Care2.com "over 5 million members who Care2 make a difference."

"Elizabeth Cunningham beckons us … in her raucous, inspired, and thought-provoking novel.”
-Spirituality and Health Magazine, coming in July/Aug 2006 issue

"The Passion of Mary Magdalen gives readers what (The DaVinci Code) does not— freedom from a false claim that all the historical elements in the book are factual. So the story can be taken as, well, a story, featuring a strong-willed woman."
-The Kansas City Star

"Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: move over.
Make room for the good news of Jesus and Maeve."
By Ed Conroy, Special to the San Antonio Express-News

Author Elizabeth Cunningham spins a fictional tale that is intellingently written, thought-provoking, and titillating to the end making her my new favorite author and placing her writing on a pedestal alongside Marion Zimmer Bradley.
-Book Review by Kya, Wise Women

"Cunningham gives us a feminist hero for modern times."
By Steven LaVigne, White Crane, July 2006

http://www.goddess-pages.com by Geraldine Charles

We were sent this book out of the blue by Elizabeth Cunningham's American publisher, Monkfish, and I must admit that my heart sank when I saw the title - there is so much being published about the Magdalene these days, most of it excitable polemic drawn from the Da Vinci Code and the like, or supposedly channelled direct from the lady herself (where was she for the last 2,000 years?).

Eventually I began to read ... and read. I did no work, barely got myself into the office for the day job and to the microwave for the odd snack. I often find novels like this peculiarly irritating because of the weird "archaic" speech that is supposed to fit in with the period but of course has absolutely nothing to do with it (think of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Mists of Avalon"). Elizabeth Cunningham makes a radically different choice of language, often racy, up-to-date. It works.

Moll Cutpurse meets Morgan le Fay

If you're expecting a pious, eyes-cast-up-to-heaven, plaster saint, you will be disappointed! This Magdalene is a real person - larger than life, passionate, funny - there are some great one-liners - but the story is also profoundly moving in places. From the jaw-dropping opening this "strapping barbarian" mouths her way out of - and often into - a lot of trouble, but never gives up on her search for a man she loved, but had to send away.

We’re never quite sure, in the Goddess movement, how to approach the minefield of so-called “sacred prostitution”. Do we tiptoe across, whispering apologies and explaining “it wasn’t the same as modern prostitution”? Or never quite touch the ground, preferring academic and lifeless responses to the many questions raised? This Magdalen (aka Maeve, wouldn’t you know she’s a Celt?) is most certainly grounded and takes this particular bull firmly by the testicles. What a survivor! Is she ashamed? Hell, no. She’s proud of it, of doing a great job and healing others along the way. I found her growing relationship with Isis particularly inspiring, so the healing wasn’t confined to fictional – or historical – characters. The Roman slave market where this great story starts might have sold her into prostitution, but it did us all a favour. And now you know what the Romans did for us.

MyShelf.com Dan Brown popularized the theory that Mary Magdalen was the wife of Jesus Christ, but Cunningham takes it to a new level. In this sexy, classy novel, Mary Magdalen is Maeve Rhuad, a big, barbarian, redheaded Druid princess, born on a Celtic isle to eight warrior-witch mothers. Yeshua, called Esus by the Celts, has traveled to her land to learn Druidic mysteries, and finds in Maeve a soulmate, a woman he will passionately love for all time. But things go terribly wrong and she helps him to escape death as a Druid sacrifice at the hands of the witches. Now she has gone to Rome to try to find him. Maeve is captured and sold on the slave block, purchased for prostitution by a well known madam, and subsequently sold to the wife of a prominent Roman as a personal slave.

The story is told from Maeve's viewpoint - from being stripped naked on the slave block to becoming a sacred whore serving the goddess Isis at the Temple Magdalen. Biblical passages are corrected by Maeve as a grand cast of characters join her as the quest to find Esus (Jesus/Yeshua) takes her on many adventures. Years pass. Maeve is freed from slavery and travels to Jerusalem with her entourage to search for Esus, now known as Jesus of Nazareth. From Jerusalem, Maeve travels to the green hills of Galilee, to Nazareth, and finally the port city of Magdala We meet all of Jesus' disciples, his sometimes balmy mother the virgin Mary, and his siblings who look down their noses at their unconventional brother.

Cunningham's story is first a huge, absorbing, historical novel about the life of a slave in Rome and then an outrageous fantasy about Mary Magdalene's life as Jesus' gentile wife. Cunningham's great imagination and talent make Maeve a force who sweeps the reader along in a past that feels like it's here and now. If there had been a lover fated for the savior, she certainly might have been this brilliant, sensual, barbaric Celt. The style is fast paced, with dialogue marked by humor, sometimes flippant, but always smart, unique. The characters and settings are brought to vivid, believable, life. Maeve is by turns feisty and funny, outrageous and tender; a character you will not soon forget. This book is certain to appeal to fans of historical fiction, to Celtophiles, to those who love fantasy, to feminists, and to anyone who loves a great story. Unconventional? Controversial? You bet. It kept me up all night, and I loved it!

It's actually worth reading through a second time, but I will have to read Daughter of the Shining Isles first. It is the first book of the Maeve Chronicles Trilogy.

Out on the Mountains

I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “blasphemy” in its intended manner. Sure, it’s a word I’ve employed in a frivolous sense, to decry questionable fashion choices or particularly misguided use of ingredients in cutting edge bakeries, but in literature? It hasn’t come up.
      Yet “blasphemy” is the concept I keep coming back to when considering Elizabeth Cunningham’s The Passion of Mary Magdalen.
       I’m not a particularly religiouswoman. I’ve done the Sunday school bit, but chances are I couldn’t name all twelve apostles if I was in a life or-death game of Jeopardy.
      Yet Cunningham’s book is challenging enough, disturbing enough, that even my spiritual sensibilities, such as they are, were upset.
       This is obviously Cunningham’s intention. In this, volume three of the five-part Maeve Chronicles, she brings us into the first days of the church and turns everything we know on its head.
       The first half of the book is amazing. Maeve - later Mary of Magdala through a twist of circumstances half-inspired by prophecy, half-dictated by a mad woman - is a proud Celt being sold at a Roman slave market. With vivid descriptions and great use of language, Cunningham turns in a virtuouso performance, bringing us into the moment. Maeve is sold into a brothel, all the while longing for her lost love Yeshua - whom she’d apparently been separated from, with mystical overtones and the loss of a child, in volume two.
       Lots of adventure follows. For the first half of this 600-page book, we’re with Maeve as she lives life in the brothel, then escaping, only to be sold to a Roman matron who keeps the fiery redheads as her own personal bed toy. It’s enticing, erotic in parts, and troubling in others.
       Maeve becomes a priestess of Isis, tapping once more back into her own mystical heritage.
         And then Maeve reconnects with Yeshua, the early Jesus. This is where a good book goes, if not bad, at least confusingly astray. Maeve loves Jesus with a passion that surpasses all human understanding - yet it’s also a very real, very stormy relationship. The couple unites, separates, fights, makes up, even marries.
      All of which is good, all of which is brilliant in parts. If Maeve would stop doing miracles, this could have been an awesome book.
      In an effort to humanize Christ, Cunningham has deified Mary. Not just a little bit, either. Remember that whole walking on the water bit? Not actually Christ. Just Mary, hundreds of miles distant, utilizing her weather witch capabilities.
      Blasted fig trees are restored to life.
      You don’t even want to know what happens at the crucifixion.
      If one is wholly separated from the Christian mythos, this probably wouldn’t matter.
      You could enjoy the text as a portrayal of two Gods, one of whom did all the work, another of whom got all the glory. It would stand well in that tradition.
      However, if you’re attached to the Jesus presented in the Bible, it’s a mind-bending, troubling experience to have everything done by him or in his name really performed by somebody else. It’s the Gospels hijacked by a largely uninvolved party.
       Wiser minds, probably more progressive minds than mine, might find this an empowering book that gives women a role in early Christianity denied them by history. We hear firsthand about the cadres of women who supported Christ’s early ministry, and the devastating effects divine visitation had upon Mary, mother of Christ. It’s fascinating stuff, a compulsive read.
      Cunningham does have a disconcerting habit of having her narrator speak directly to the reader in modern parlance. It’s well done - the anachronisms serve to reinforce Maeve’s image as a wise cracking, tough whore/ smartass - but it does jar occasionally.       Those with a passion for historical accuracy or traditionally presented scripture might do well to pass up The Passion of Mary Magdalene. Everyone else is likely to find it an engrossing, challenging read.

Cynthia Potts reads and writes in upstate New York.

New Age Retailer

Ever wonder why Mary Magdalene is usually depicted in art as a redhead? How about because she was a Celt? Elizabeth Cunningham’s novel of the life of Mary “Maeve” Magdalene is full of “common knowledge” twists. Many hidebound Christians may be offended (move over The Da Vinci Code); but thoughtful seekers of any faith will be intrigued. Not only was Mary Magdalene married to Jesus; she was a priestess and hierodule of Isis (a concept reminiscent of Robert Graves’ King Jesus). This substantial tome of more than 600 pages is fascinating and well-researched. Cunningham has nailed the essence of several cultures (Celtic, Greco-Roman, and Eastern Mediterranean) and yet her style is this-minute current. The Bible (Hebrew and New Testament) has not been ignored as much as reinterpreted in the light of Gnostic and other materials. You might consider putting all the Magdalene titles currently in print on a featured shelf. The Da Vinci Code will be hot for a while and you’ll be getting lots of queries about related books!

Carri Brennan, For Heaven’s Sake , National Review Network — Fall 2006
Denver, Colo.

AboutTown

Priestess-Whore and Healer: The Passion of Mary Magdalen

Elizabeth Cunningham didn't set out to write a healing antidote to our cultural legacy of shame, although that's how her latest novel, The Passion of Mary Magdalen, is being hailed by many. In fact, Cunningham will be the first to tell you that she didn't set out to write a novel about Mary Magdalen at all. But the author reports that the brazen hussy just would not leave her alone until she agreed to write her story.

It all started during the Gulf War, when a character named Madge first popped into Cunningham‘s consciousness. Madge was an artist who supported herself with the oldest profession. She called herself a Peace Prostitute and espoused the slogan, "Penises for Peace." The bold and gloriously zaftig redhead first insisted that Cunningham create a series of cartoons featuring her in all her unabashed nakedness, a playful opus that became The Book of Madge, displayed at the Center for Book Arts in New York City in 1991.

After this, Cunningham assumed her work with Madge was done, but she couldn't have been more mistaken: the character just wouldn‘t go away. "One night I was lying out in the moonlight," she says, "which is always a dangerous thing to do, and it came to me that Madge was Madge Magdalen, a red-haired Celtic Magdalen. So I asked her if this was the book she wanted me to put her in and she said, ‘That's the one. You finally figured it out.'" Madge quickly evolved into Maeve, a fiery lass raised by eight warrior-witches on the Celtic Isle of Women.

From this it should be clear that Maeve is not your ordinary Magdalen. But there are other differences, as well. For one thing, she is most definitely a prostitute, unlike some of her theoretical sistren. Yes, she was sold unwillingly into prostitution as a slave in Rome, but still. And unlike those Magdalens who are assumed to be prostitutes, she is unrepentant and unashamed. In fact, Maeve becomes a Priestess Whore who sees healers and prostitutes in somewhat the same light, and who embodies sacred sexuality. But perhaps the thing that truly sets her apart from the current crowd of Magdalens is that she is most emphatically not a disciple but an outrageously juicy, bold incarnation of the Divine Feminine who is clearly the equal and partner of the Son of God.

Cunningham is uniquely suited to write this story of a unique Magdalen: she is the last in a line of nine generations of ministers, although her denomination is Interfaith while her antecedents were all Episcopal (her father was minister of the church in Millbrook, where she spent many of her formative years). But while her fascination with the Judeo-Christian tradition is lifelong and she researched the material and the period rigorously, this is a novel, not another theory. "The historical setting is accurate, but there is no evidence for my story. I agree with Maeve's eight warrior-witch mothers," she says. "A story is true if it's well-told."

Readers all across the country are passionately embracing this story and its title character. What's the secret of Maeve's appeal? When I asked the author what gifts Maeve offers her readers, she responded, "I think she brings fierceness, feistiness, guts, a radical honesty. And she's unabashedly human and female. The little glimpses we've been given of Mary Magdalen have not been fleshed out and Maeve is so gloriously fleshy."

What is the attraction of living in a more Maeve-like way? And what would that look like? Cunningham answers, "We would stop apologizing for ourselves, we'd stop explaining and complaining and just be fully embodied. We wouldn't fear judgment. We wouldn't cast judgment. We would have pleasure in ourselves, in life, in love, in food, in dancing, in music, all the while not ignoring the sorrow of the world. Joy and sorrow are not antithetical—we can hold both."

Asked what was the most pleasurable part of writing this passion story, Cunningham responds, "I found a way to love Jesus from this other place outside of orthodoxy and embrace all that's deep and true about my Christian background, yet be who I am."

Cunningham‘s novel does for the Christian story what Mists of Avalon did for the Arthurian legend, restoring the lost voice of women without seeking to create a new orthodoxy. It is also a great read, rich with all the sights, scents, and sounds of Rome and Judea. In fact, the book is a full-body experience.

Cait Johnson

Wise Women

Celtic Druid? Roman Whore? Christian Goddess? Priestess of Isis?

Mary Magdalen is all this and more in the thrilling adventure that is The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Author Elizabeth Cunningham spins a fictional tale that is intellingently written, thought-provoking, and titillating to the end making her my new favorite author and placing her writing on a pedestal alongside Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Readers experience life through the perspective of Mary Magdalen herself, whose true name is Maeve. A bold, red-headed Celt from the Isle of Tir na mBan, Druid-trained, exiled and captured into slavery in Roman whore-house, The Vine & Fig Tree, Maeve finds sister-friends, political allies and trouble with her rebellious nature--and this is just the beginning.

As the story unfolds, moving at a pace that the reader is never bored, Maeve reveals the passionate love she has for Esus, the lover she freed from sacrifice on the Isle of Tir na mBan. After meeting a Priestess of the forbidden Temple of Isis it is prophesied that she too will join the order and become a great healer. And so this comes to pass and much more as the psychic visions that Maeve has prove true when, after she is freed from slavery, she settles in Magdalene and established a holy whore-house with priestesses of Isis who served as and when they please. It is here that her beloved Esus comes to her, in the middle of the night, badly beaten and near death. And here that the name, Mary of Magdalene, was thrust upon her much to her dismay.

Cunningham certainly did her homework, weaving biblical stories and mythology into not only believable, but perhaps probable explanations of the series of events that weave Esus and Maeve together. Their physical passion clashes with cultural and religious beliefs tearing their hearts usunder, and ultimately returning them to wholeness in the midst of pesky disciples, hostile governments, an over-bearing mother, and the inevitable end that haunts both of their dreams.

Mary Magdalen, Maeve, is a heroine who is Priestess of Isis, Celtic Druid, Whore and Christian Goddess, an archetypal image that burns true in the blood of women everywhere and this book, The Passion of Mary Magdalen, fans those flames. Gratefully, Elizabeth Cunningham intends to make this a series with two more books--one a look at the early life of Maeve on the Isle of Tir na mBan and the other a take on the her life after Jesus's resurrection. Personally I can't wait!

I picked up my copy at Borders, before it even hit the shelf. You can visit www.passionofmarymagdalen.com for more information. By the way, this weekend, July 22, is the celebration of the Feast of Mary Magdalen. How will you celebrate?

Book Review by Kya

White Crane “The road to the country of life is hard. It blisters your feet and breaks your heart” writes Elizabeth Cunningham in her remarkably exciting new [Novel], The Passion of Mary Magdalen. This massive, but refreshing feminist approach to the woman who’s a hero for many who draw strength from the Bible’s most enigmatic character couldn’t have been published at a better time. The worldwide sensation of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code has raised so many issues among the Christian population, it was only a matter of time before alternative viewpoints regarding the key people in Christ’s ministry would appear.

Cunningham takes us into the world of Maeve, nicknamed Red, who’s the daughter of the warrior witches of Tir na Mban, including Cailleach, Bride, and Dugall the Brown. Using traditional Biblical concepts that she’s a reformed prostitute, rather than the theory she was born into a wealthy French family, Cunningham’s take on Biblical history and her epic storytelling style are unique. Often The Passion of Mary Magdalen is written in the romantic style of a Harlequin Romance (she even asks readers if the story is “starting to read like a romantic novel,”), yet by combining modern phrases, such as “get a life” or “get over it” with such beautiful metaphors as “the wood is so still you could hear the leaves breathe,” Cunningham gives us a feminist hero for modern times.

Sold into Roman slavery, Maeve’s saga moves quickly from the brothel to servitude to Paulina, the virgin wife of the ancient Claudius. Befriended by Reginus, a gay slave, Maeve’s spiritualism is recognized and after an encounter with her stepfather, Bran, a Druid warrior who, as Rex Nemorensis, guards the holy tree in Diana’s forest, she’s raised to the level of priestess in the Temple of Isis.

The Fascist emperor, Tiberius Caesar forces changes in Rome and the story moves to Judea for its second half, where it really takes off. Using William Blake’s poem “And Did Those Feet” as a basis, Maeve explains that the lost (Gnostic) gospels are mostly speculation, when Esus (the Celtic name for Jesus) aka Yeshua, enters the story in Chapter 37. Franco Zefferelli modernized the Virgin Birth by having Mary go through labor pains in Jesus of Nazareth and Cunningham further modernizes the Mother by drawing an unflattering portrait of Miriam/Mary.

Cunningham creates a complex woman, conflicted in her love for Jesus and her need to serve Isis. She has a sexual relationship with Jesus, thus humanizing the man, and she connects the tale of the Good Samaritan to Jesus’ 40-day fast in the desert, having the Samaritan deliver him to the Temple Magdalen, built to worship all goddesses and gods, because “all things are possible.” Baptized by John in the river Jordan, Maeve dislikes Simon Peter, calling him “Rocks for Brains,” and Cunningham focuses on Maeve’s passions, especially in the saga’s compelling second half.

The Passion of Mary Magdalen has been rightly compared to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. Just as that book told the legend of King Arthur from the women’s viewpoint, The Passion of Mary Magdalen by Elizabeth Cunningham brings its title character into modern times by creating an extraordinary perspective of the woman loved by Jesus. For the novice, the Biblical scholar and the Feminist, this is a book that’s not to be missed.

by Steven LaVigne, July 2006

Episcopal Life Magazine

When last we left Maeve Rhuad, she was cleaving to the bottom of a boat in perilous seas and hearing women’s voices promise, “She will live.”

That was five years ago at the end of Daughter of the Shining Isles, the prequel in The Maeve Chronicles. Now, Elizabeth Cunningham scores spectacularly with the central novel, The Passion of Mary Magdalen, which stands beautifully alone, independent of Daughter. Maeve continues telling her tale to a 21st-century reader and allows that we might know parts of the story she is telling. Although still colloquial, Maeve is not quite so sassy as in the prequel, but, then, she’s no longer an adolescent at Druid school, falling for a co-ed from the south named Esus.

Throughout the first half of The Passion, Maeve looks for her lost love -- not easy to do, given her status as an enslaved prostitute in Rome. She whirls from whoring in a brothel, to being a spoiled woman’s pedisequa (pet slave), to serving the goddess Isis as a temple priestess and as a healer “with the fire of stars in her hands.”

Then she finds Esus, now called Jesus, and she is compelled to tell the passion story “to the promised Dawn.”

Pages Magazine Rarely has Jesus seemed more human than in The Passion of Mary Magdalen – especially when making love to his wife. Mary of Magdala (born Maeve Rhuad, daughter of eight warrior mothers) narrates this story of yore to the reader (that’s “you”) in today’s salty language. That juxtaposition is but one of many neat feats Elizabeth Cunningham accomplishes in this remarkable novel.

For the first half, Maeve describes her life in Rome as a slave-whore, then a priestess to Isis; in so doing, Cunningham defines the world in which Jesus began teaching, a world of fear, sex, and unvalued life. Maeve finally finds Jesus, whom she’d fallen for when both studied at Druid School as teenagers (“unlikely perhaps but fun,” Maeve said of the story she told in the sassy prequel Daughter of the Shining Isles). The second half of The Passion is “tricky terrain,” Maeve knows: “…it takes a hell of a lot of nerve to tell another version of the gospel story.” Tell it she does. She includes the bits about dopey disciples, Mary of Bethany’s preaching, Jesus’ marriage to the Magdalen at Cana, the cross and the cave -- all the way “to the promised dawn.” Seamlessly sewing New Testament gospels and the left-out gospels of Thomas, Philip, and Mary, Cunningham becomes, like Maeve, a healer “with the fire of stars in her hands.”

In Maeve/Mary, Cunningham has created a voice that soothes and pricks. The Passion of Mary Magdalen is reverently irreverent in the hands of Elizabeth Cunningham, descended from nine generations of Episcopal priests and a spiritual counselor at St. John the Divine in New York City. The Passion offers a digestive to Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ,” and a fascination way beyond Dan Brown’s exploitation of this Mary’s story in The DaVinci Code.

May 2006

Foreword Magazine The life of Jesus, and even some of the apostles, has been richly imagined through fiction and film, from The Da Vinci Code to The Last Temptation of Christ and Passion of the Christ. Although the role of Mary Magdalen is occasionally prominent, particularly in Dan Brown’s wildly popular novel and Martin Scorsese’s movie, she isn’t a central enough character to garner any exploration of her origins or motivations. She usually springs, Aphrodite-like, wholly formed from the foamy musings of writers and filmmakers.

This epic, stunningly original work, in re-imagining a Magdalen of complexity, strength, and yearning is partly the counterbalance to our culture’s tendency to imbue Jesus with a host of characteristics and yet leave the Magdalen a two-dimensional, barely understood woman at his side. Partly, though, Cunningham’s novel is simply a roaring good read.

The author of The Return of the Goddess, Daughter of the Shining Isles, and The Wild Mother,—all stocked with characters that rival the mythic Amazons—Cunningham brings a unique perspective to her novels, and is well-suited to pen the Magdalen story. Coming from nine generations of Episcopal priests, she followed the family calling and became a minister herself, specializing in counseling and interfaith issues.

It’s not difficult to draw parallels to Cunningham’s deep family legacy of spirituality and the origins of her Magdalen. Born on a Celtic island, this Magdalen is no lone figure who suddenly steps into a prophet’s camp. Rather, she’s the daughter to eight “warrior-witch mothers” whose bones and teeth grew strong early from the milk of these dynamic, formidable women.

In modern parlance, she’s a kickass, taking-names rebel who frequently gets in trouble for saying precisely what she’s thinking and being unapologetic about it. This Magdalen, though she would eventually weep at the feet of Jesus, is hewn from stern stuff indeed.

In telling Magdalen’s tale, Cunningham attempts to mix modern speech, slightly antiquated Latin-inspired phrases, and an occasional contemporary reference. Often, she slips into the second-person voice, as if she’s telling the story directly to the reader. The result is sometimes jarring, as when she’s describing a Roman street with its garishly painted statues and frescos, and attempts to convey the difference between how readers may picture Rome and how it truly was: “You may be accustomed to thinking of the ancient world as full of white columns and torsos missing arms and busts with chipped noses,” she writes. “That’s only because the paint doesn’t last. Think Las Vegas and you’ll be closer to the Rome of my day.”

Despite this modest difficulty, her tendency to make Magdalen speak to the reader more often invokes a kind of intimacy, as if the reader alone were hearing this unbelievable tale of love, loss, and longing. She’s reaching through the ages to detail her sojourn on the mortal plain, and what a life it was: after rescuing young Esus from sacrifice, she goes in search of him and is captured by a slave trader. Sold to a brothel, where her hair color earns her the nickname “Red,” she loses none of her fiery nature or secret longing to find Esus as she journeys from prostitution to working as a Roman house slave to becoming a temple priestess of Isis.

When she is eventually reunited with her love, now known as Jesus, she is made whole at last, and her devotion to him, and his to her, is a multi-layered love of mutual understanding and respect. Magdalen was not a woman forgiven her trespasses, a whore made holy, but rather a partner to Jesus in a relationship marked by deep affection, true passion, and even a few arguments. Biblical references aside, Cunningham creates a rich, detailed ancient world, but at its center are two timeless figures whose story is known to anyone who’s loved and, especially, lost.

When Jesus is crucified, his suffering is seen through the Magdalen, and the experience is nearly unbearable: “Then my beloved cried aloud, and I was there on the cross with him. I became him. I became pain so absolute that whose it was seemed meaningless. ... My prayer became heartbeat, breath, a tiny coracle moon resting in a sky of pain, drifting on a sea of pain, and I rode it on and on.”

Although the connection between Magdalen and Jesus is particularly compelling, also notable is Cunningham’s adroit interpretation of Biblical text, as she takes stories from the Bible and imagines them as they happened, with yelling, laughter, dust, and conflict. Through Magdalen’s eyes, spiritual growth becomes familiar, and the familiar becomes dazzling. (May)

May 2006