Booklist starred review!

BOOKLIST starred review, Feb 06

THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN, A NOVEL by Elizabeth Cunningham

Anyone who hasn’t lived in a cave for the last few years has heard the rumor that Mary Magdalen was, literally, the Bride of Christ. The Da Vinci Code popularized the theory, sufficiently so that Magdalen pilgrimages are now big business in France—for of course she wound up in France, in order to establish the French royal family. Magdalen fans are in for more surprises in Cunningham’s classy, sexy novel. While some would whitewash the Magdalene’s past, Cunningham embraces her reputation for prostitution and goes further: her Magdalen is a sacred whore, serving the goddess Isis. And she’s a Celt, a big strapping red-headed Celt sold into slavery in Rome and bought for her ample charms by a renowned domina (Roman for “madam”). The book, as ample as Magdalen’s bosom, is really two stories: the first, an absorbing historical novel about the down-and-dirty of slave life in Rome, the second a visionary fantasy about the Magdalen’s life as the gentile wife of Jesus. Few characters are shared between the two stories except Paulina, the endearingly slutty Roman who is Magdalen’s second owner. (Any reader not ready for lesbianism in a book about sex with the Redeemer should not open this book.) But in both sections, we meet characters well known from other texts. In the first half, we visit the grove of Aricia and meet the king of the “golden bough”; in the second, we discover that, holy as she is, the Virgin Mary is also quite dotty. Written in a wild, breakneck fashion, Cunningham’s novel is sure to be controversial but will be snatched up by Magdalen fans, Celtphiles, feminists and readers who love a good yarn. Oh, by the way, the Magdalen’s name wasn’t Mary: it was Maeve.