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“The best one yet!”—Catherine MacCoun, author of On Becoming an Alchemist
"As usual, Cunningham provides plenty of juicy controversy embodied by vivid characters and expressed in vigorous action, all in crisply drawn biblical settings."— Booklist
" Gleefully iconoclastic. For that dwindling demographic with a sense of humor about religion, Maeve’s profane skewering of the all-too-human foibles of the Church fathers is a hoot." Kirkus Reiews
" "Elizabeth Cunningham has again delved into her fabulous treasure trove of impeccable research, and come up with gold. In Bright Dark Madonna , her interweaving of Biblical-Celtic themes brings the first century to life with unexpected freshness and many surprises." —Katherine Neville, author of The Eight and The Fire
After playing an intimate role in the mystery of the Resurrection, what is left for Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen? Never a follower, will she emerge as a leader of the early church? Will she retire quietly to mother a sacred bloodline? Will she set sail for France to proselytize and go spelunking? The answer: all and none of the above. No sooner does Maeve open her mouth to preach the gospel her way than a fierce debate begins about what to do with the child she is carrying. Maeve has her own ideas about where best to raise the savior’s scion. When she returns to Temple Magdalen, the holy whorehouse she founded, a custody battle of biblical proportions ensues. Maeve, her infant daughter Sara, and Jesus’ mother flee to the remote Taurus Mountains where they live in hiding among the Galatians until a mysterious man is dumped on their doorstep more dead than alive. When Maeve discovers the identity of the man she has healed, she is appalled and determined to keep her family’s secret. But Maeve has reckoned without the will of her brilliant, angry adolescent daughter who resolves to find out the truth about her father—for herself.
Required reading for fans and accesible to those new to The Maeve Chronicles, Bright Dark Madonna takes the reader on a breathtaking journey from the temple porticoes of Jerusalem, to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, to the south of France, and, as always, to the treacherous, beautiful terrain of the human heart.
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The third novel of The Maeve Chronicles, Bright Dark Madonna, tells the story of the third chapter in the life of the Celtic Magdalen. It takes us through the formation and establishment of the early church, and it tells the heart-breaking (to me) story of how Mary Mags, as she is known in my house, got written out of herstory. At the beginning of the third book, Maeve--the gentile whore/goddess/ widow of Jesus--is pregnant, and none too sure of her place in Jesus' history.
As the novel progresses, Maeve attains the age I am now, and I was fascinated by her desire for peace. Peace in herself. Peace in her relationships. Peace in her world. And, peace with her own story. One of the things that each of us faces as we grow older, and hopefully wiser, is whether to let our story die with us, or to tell our story so that future generations will learn it and learn from it. This Maeve is no exception.
Telling the story of one's life is part of what allows us to make peace with that story--with the parts we played, the parts we didn't, the parts others played, and those they didn't. Storytelling is Elizabeth Cunningham's supreme gift, and as we witness Maeve's process with raising her daughter, and coming to terms with her true place in the story, we see a vision of a woman lost. Her post-resurrection Christ Jesus speaks to her from the inside out, "Being lost is the way, how else can you be found. How else can you find what you have lost: sheep, coins, love?"
The path, anyone's path, is the path of becoming lost in order that one might find oneself. So to all of us who have ever felt lost, Cunningham delivers through Bright Dark Madonna the supreme advice for the spiritual life: if you feel lost, you're doing it right. Perfectly right.
That is the heart-opening lesson of the bright, dark, wild, wonderful, lost-and-found Maeve Magdalen.
Bright Dark Madonna follows Maeve/Magdalene from the death of Jesus to the maturity, about 20 years later, of their daughter Sara. Like the previous book, it offers an alternative version of the roots of Christianity that is well-researched, clearly described, and fascinating. Those familiar with the "lore" of Mary Magdalene will recognize most of the ideas in this book. I've not encountered a writer who has put them together more coherently and attractively. And even if that were not so, Maeve is a unique, feminist voice worth hearing regardless of her story.
Personally, as someone no more engaged with Christianity than I am with Sufi or the cult of Omfala the Dancing Eland, I was sorry to see traditional Christianity treated as sympathetically as it is here, but it comes with the territory. Cunningham is, after all, not merely a Christian but a Christian minister. And as much as I would prefer a Maeve who spurns Christianity, what she does instead is persuasive and consistent with her love for Jesus.
Bright Dark Madonna gets us to a cave in the south of France. It gives us a picture of Mary the Mother of Jesus (or "the Queen of Heaven," as she prefers to be called) that is the most singular charm of the book. It weaves traditional and "alternative" church history into a garment that fits (or doesn't) heretics and the orthodox. It is a love story garbed in mysticism at once New Age and Gnostic (and, without a word about it, gives us a clue about the origin of "The Gospel of Mary"). It will offend the fundamentalist believer vastly more than it does the confirmed skeptic.
But the love of Jesus and Mary is an old heresy, and what Cunningham makes of it is luminous and enchanting. Her Gnostic souls are emanant enough to give a wonderful ambiguity (stolen, by the way, from D. H. Lawrence) to the idea of "the risen Lord." Sara may have been conceived after Jesus' death, but she is a creature of blessed flesh and blood, as is her dear mother.
This is my Magdalene; I can't thank Elizabeth Cunningham enough for giving her a voice and a story to tell, at last.
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