- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY; Reprint edition (May 1 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 155861186X
- ISBN-13: 978-1558611863
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,102,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
1987 American Book Award Winner
This ambitious and enchanting novel is both modern-day epic and a work of great emotional and spiritual death. Bold in its historical scope, rich in colorful settings, and eminently readable, Confessions of Madame Psyche also reaches inward, toward quieter truths.
The novel is narrated by Mei0li Murrow, born in San Francisco in 1895, the illegitimate daughter of a charismatic confidence man and the Chinese prostitute he has "rescued" from the streets. After her mother's early death, Mei-li is left to care of her mercenary half-sister Erika. When the young Mei-li, by pure coincidence, predicts the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Erika contructs her identity as "Madame Psyche"-exploiting Mei'li's exoticism and her clients' yearnings for contact with the dead in a series of ingeniously orchestrated seances that win her renown as a medium in California and then in the death-soaked Europe of the First World War.
Ironically, it is when she manages to finally reject the popular "spirituality" that has made her famous that Mei-li experiences a truer spiritual vision: One day, while walking on the beach, she has a revelation of her connection to all of life-"an experience of hidden reality which I have never doubted...and which left me permanently changed by what I then knew and know still and will always know."
Mei-li's subsequent journey leads her through the aspirations and disappointments of a utopian commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the 1920s; to the poverty of migrant work camps in the Depression-era Salinas Valley; and to the courage of the first strikes on San Jose's cannery row. Finally, when the relentless Erika cheats her out of an inheritance by having her committed to the Napa State Hospital, Mee-li finds her greatest wisdom and peace among the outcasts of the asylum-and there writes her "confessions."
Mei'li's story is ensconed in the rich history of Northern California in the first half of the twentieth century, and peopled by comrades of many classes and cultures and lovers both male and female; but her central odyssey remains one of inner discovery. In Confessions of Madame Psyche, Dorothy Bryant has created a character who is so honest in her search for truth, growth, and spiritual understanding that this quest becomes inherent to her survival.
About the Author
DOROTHY BRYANT is the author of twelve novels including The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You, Ella Price’s Journal, and Miss Giardino. J. J. WILSON is a professor of English at Sonoma State University in California.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A well-researched historical novel set in San Francisco,
By
This review is from: Confessions of Madame Psyche (Paperback)
This precisely rendered historical novel relates four disparate periods in the life of its fictional heroine, Mei-Li Murrow, or Madame Psyche. Mei-Li's childhood and early adulthood is spent as a renowned (if fraudulent) spiritualist wunderkind, a period which begins with the San Francisco earthquake and continues through the First World War and influenza epidemic to the advent of radio. During the 1920s, Mei-Li leaves her first profession and establishes a utopian (and ultimately dystopian!) community south of the Bay area. These first two sections are truly novel. In the last two parts, Bryant retreads familiar literary ground. Mei-Li's Depression-era experiences are very much like Steinbeck's novels (both "In Dubious Battle" and "The Grapes of Wrath"), yet, like many other works of Depression-era proletarian fiction (such as Alexander Saxton's "The Great Midland"), it is more representative of the non-white ethnic mix of American labor. Eventually, Mei-Li ends her life in an asylum for the mentally ill, in a section that exposes the injustices of these institutions while simultaneously displaying the humanity that can flourish within their walls. Mei-Li's various episodes and adventures, while seemingly unconnected, conspire to trigger the novel's one big plot twist--and I can't say anything else without ruining the surprise As J. J. Wilson notes in her afterword, the novel is "admirably well-researched," and the result is a fascinating historical panorama. The narrative is always absorbing and occasionally suspenseful, yet the story is rarely emotional or sentimental; Mei-Li relates the death of a lover with the same matter-of-fact tone she uses to describe one of her fraudulent seances. Often this works in the book's favor, but at times the meticulous research and academic tone nearly overwhelm the drama. Even Wilson admits that Bryant "chose a difficult path in putting her Psyche in charge of her own narrative. . . . Mei-Li reports events with little comment." In spite of this weakness, Mei-Li's story is faithfully and believably depicted, and there is much wisdom and beauty in Bryant's epic novel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.9 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A well-researched historical novel set in San Francisco,
By D. Cloyce Smith - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Confessions of Madame Psyche (Paperback)
This precisely rendered historical novel relates four disparate periods in the life of its fictional heroine, Mei-Li Murrow, or Madame Psyche. Mei-Li's childhood and early adulthood is spent as a renowned (if fraudulent) spiritualist wunderkind, a period which begins with the San Francisco earthquake and continues through the First World War and influenza epidemic to the advent of radio. During the 1920s, Mei-Li leaves her first profession and establishes a utopian (and ultimately dystopian!) community south of the Bay area. These first two sections are truly novel. In the last two parts, Bryant retreads familiar literary ground. Mei-Li's Depression-era experiences are very much like Steinbeck's novels (both "In Dubious Battle" and "The Grapes of Wrath"), yet, like many other works of Depression-era proletarian fiction (such as Alexander Saxton's "The Great Midland"), it is more representative of the non-white ethnic mix of American labor. Eventually, Mei-Li ends her life in an asylum for the mentally ill, in a section that exposes the injustices of these institutions while simultaneously displaying the humanity that can flourish within their walls. Mei-Li's various episodes and adventures, while seemingly unconnected, conspire to trigger the novel's one big plot twist--and I can't say anything else without ruining the surprise As J. J. Wilson notes in her afterword, the novel is "admirably well-researched," and the result is a fascinating historical panorama. The narrative is always absorbing and occasionally suspenseful, yet the story is rarely emotional or sentimental; Mei-Li relates the death of a lover with the same matter-of-fact tone she uses to describe one of her fraudulent seances. Often this works in the book's favor, but at times the meticulous research and academic tone nearly overwhelm the drama. Even Wilson admits that Bryant "chose a difficult path in putting her Psyche in charge of her own narrative. . . . Mei-Li reports events with little comment." In spite of this weakness, Mei-Li's story is faithfully and believably depicted, and there is much wisdom and beauty in Bryant's epic novel. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
undescribable,
By S.L.Zuber - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Confessions of Madame Psyche (Paperback)
This is one of the most beautifully written novels I have read in a long time. Selections from Confessions was assigned in a college philosophy class, and I had to go back and read the whole thing from beginning to end. Characterization was so complete and encapsulating that I was sad to leave Mei-Li at the end. Her journey becomes your own journey of selfdiscovery; what it means to be moral, human, a woman.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five stars are not adequate for this novel!,
By Alexis Masters - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Confessions of Madame Psyche (Paperback)
This is absolutely one of my all-time favorite novels. It has everything I want in a good work of visionary fiction. Written by perhaps the most overlooked genius in literature today, this book has the power to touch you deeply and change the way you see the world forever after. When I think of titles that SHOULD HAVE won the great prestigious critical awards in the past quarter century, Confessions of Madame Psyche heads the list.
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