The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel Book

The title of this book doesn't do justice to just how astonishing it is. At turns reverent and irreverent, bawdy, earthy, spiritual, funny, moving, human and divine, it's an incredible journey with wonderfully dimensional characters. A massive book, and so involving, I had to put it down periodically and take a breather, but each time I picked it up again I fell right into the narrative, drawn away and drawn in so completely.

The narrator, Maeve, aka Mary Magdalen, is a voluptuous Celtic girl who goes from priestess, to Roman slave and common prostitute, to pagan priestess, to beloved wife of Jesus. Told in the first person, Maeve's voice is an instant and enduring hook'the prose as earthy-real and voluptuous as Maeve herself. And very modern, which bothered me on the first page, but by the second page I realized that Maeve is telling this two thousand year old story from the present'though the mechanism of how that is occurring is never revealed. (There is a sequel.)

I should add here that there is also a prequel and if you wish to read Magdalen Rising and remain unspoiled as to the major plot points, you should probably read that one first. I didn't, so I can't speak as to whether it's the tour de force the second book is, but even though I know the high points of what happened in that story, since finishing Passion, I want to read the first story. Which must be some kind of testament as to how much this book affected me.

Ms. Cunningham manages to honor both the pagan and Judeo-Christian traditions, to meld them so artfully that it seemed incredible that they'd ever been parted. If you are a biblical literalist, perhaps this won't work for you. But it moved me very deeply, left me thinking about it for days after, marveling in the passion play I had just taken part in.