SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2013

Colm Tóibín's The Testament of Mary is a short, powerful novel about one of the most famous mothers in history.

From the author of Brooklyn, in a voice that is both tender and filled with rage, The Testament of Mary tells the story of a cataclysmic event which led to an overpowering grief. For Mary, her son has been lost to the world, and now, living in exile and in fear, she tries to piece together the memories of the events that led to her son's brutal death. To her he was a vulnerable figure, surrounded by men who could not be trusted, living in a time of turmoil and change.

As her life and her suffering begin to acquire the resonance of myth, Mary struggles to break the silence surrounding what she knows to have happened. In her effort to tell the truth in all its gnarled complexity, she slowly emerges as a figure of immense moral stature as well as a woman from history rendered now as fully human.

Praise for The Testament of Mary:

'This is a short book, but it is as dense as a diamond. It is as tragic as a Spanish pieta, but it is completely heretical...Tóibín maintains all the dignity of Mary without subscribing to the myths that have accumulated around her' Edmund White, Irish Times

'Depicting the harrowing losses and evasions that can go on between mothers and sons...Tóibín creates a reversed Pièta: he holds the mother in his arms' Independent

'A beautiful and daring work...it takes its power from the surprise of its language, its almost shocking characterization' Mary Gordon, New York Times

Colm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of six novels, including The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award, and two collections of stories, Mothers and Sons and The Empty Family.

Print length

112 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Viking
Publication date

25 Oct. 2012
Dimensions

13.8 x 1.6 x 20.4 cm
ISBN-10

0670922099
ISBN-13

978-0670922093
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Product details

Publisher : Viking (25 Oct. 2012)
Language : English
Hardcover : 112 pages
ISBN-10 : 0670922099
ISBN-13 : 978-0670922093
Dimensions : 13.8 x 1.6 x 20.4 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 700,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,626 in Spiritual & Historical Fiction
- 2,263 in Christian Fiction (Books)
- 41,212 in Historical Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews:
952 ratings

Product description

Review

Beguiling and deeply intelligent...In a single passage - and in a rendition, furthermore, of one of the most famous passages of western literature - Tóibín shows how the telling and the details are all-important. (Robert Collins Sunday Times)

Tóibín's weary Mary, sceptical and grudging, reads as far more true and real than the saintly perpetual virgin of legend. And Tóibín is a wonderful writer: as ever, his lyrical and moving prose is the real miracle. (Naomi Alderman Observer)

This is a flawless work, touching, moving and terrifying. (Linda Grant New Statesman)

There is a profound ache throughout this little character study, a steely determination coupled with an unbearable loss. Although it has some insightful things to say about religion and the period - the descriptions of the Crucifixion are visceral - it has a universal message about the nature of loss. (Stuart Kelly Scotland on Sunday)

This novel is the Virgin's version of the life of Christ. After a lifetime listening to everyone else's versions of that life, she is angry and frustrated because they are all questionable. (Irish Independent)

Toibin has created an impressive work of religious imagination...haunting, highly original. (TLS)

Beautifully crafted (The Times)

Fearsomely strange, deeply thoughtful (Guardian)

With deceptively modest prose, Tóibín presents the Virgin Mary's story as one of human loss rather than salvation. By doing so he gives us a Mary to identify with rather than venerate. (Metro)

Daring and very moving (John Banville "Books of the Year", Irish Times)

About the Author

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of nine novels including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary and Nora Webster. His work has been shortlisted for the Booker three times, has won the Costa Novel Award and the Impac Award. His most recent novel is House of Names. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. He lives in Dublin.

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An unorthodox Testament

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 October 2017

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WARNING: IF YOU ARE WORRIED BY SPOILERS, DON’T READ THIS REVIEW.

This book has upset many readers because it does not tally with the Gospel story and the general perception of Mary. But I think it is legitimate to imagine a story in which, haunted though she is by the anguish about her son’s death, she is critical of him, does not believe in his mission, and finds the manner in which he addressed his disciples “false in voice and stilted in tone”. In her grief, such a person might well, for example, lose her faith in Judaism and turn for comfort to Artemis. Because Jesus was watched by enemies who wanted to destroy him, Toibin has Mary going to the wedding at Cana with the purpose of bringing him safely back home, and this might account for his coolness towards her. He is shown as proud and regal.

Oddly, her negative attitude to Jesus’ mission is not affected by her recounting, graphically and without any scepticism, his miracles, such as his healing of the lame man or his raising of Lazarus from the dead, though she comments on the hysteria of the crowds who believe in them. Toibin even has the risen Lazarus attend the wedding at Cana. But it is a haunted, sick and agonized Lazarus.

When Jesus ignored his mother at Cana, she returned home to Nazareth, where she herself was also being watched by enemies. It is at home that she hears of more miracles that Jesus was performing, and, finally, the dreaded news that he was to be crucified.

She is now in danger herself. She watches the Crucifixion in all its horror, and blamed herself ever afterwards for having merely watched and not rushed towards him, pointless though that would have been. Not only that: but she was so terrified of being taken and killed herself that she fled the scene before Jesus had given up the ghost. After much hardship, she arrived in Ephesus, where she is telling her story as an old woman. (Ephesus has the great temple to Artemis.)

In the beginning the book is quite obscure. Two men badger Mary, in a persistent and hostile manner, for more of her memories. It turns out in the end that they are disciples of Jesus who are putting together his story and have already invented the Virgin Birth, and they have already turned into reality what Mary had only seen in dreams at night: that she had not fled, but had stayed to the end and had cradled the broken body of her son in her arms. But she still does not believe in his mission; and when they tell her that his death had redeemed the world, she exclaims that “it was not worth it.”

7 people found this helpful

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C. o'connell

Beautiful and heartbreaking, a mother’s story of her sons death

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 2020

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Breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreaking. This is a book written by a mother, agonizing over her sons brutal death. It just happens to be about the death of Jesus, but it’s coming from the heart of Mary the mother - it’s not the biblical account, this a mother’s story. It’s probably controversial in that defies the biblical presentation of Mary. But read it for what it is, a mother’s story of her sons death, the events leading up to his death, how she wonders if she could have done something to prevent him taking the path he chose.

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TonyVaux

No credit for Mary as mother

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2020

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This short book follows a long tradition of meditation on Mary's thoughts about Jesus. These thoughts become stranger until at the Crucifixion she seems to lose her grip on reality and the book ends with her turning to worship of Artemis. For me Mary comes across as human but rather weak throughout. We are not helped to understand how as a mother she helped to make Jesus such an extraordinary person. It is an interesting perspective but lacks depth and development. Could Jesus have done it all on his own? This faltering Mary only deserves a short book.

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A bit of a surprise

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 September 2018

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Having read Brooklyn and its sequel I was a bit surprised by this story which really is the supposed testament of Christ's mother, Mary. I found it a bit disturbing, but the story did make me think and didn't destroy any beliefs I have about Jesus' life, in fact it treated him as a fairly normal human being who was wronged by politicians and church leaders and in that way made it feel quite contemporary!!!

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Amazon Customer

Easter with a twist

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2014

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I read this book on Easter Day and I'm glad I did . It provides another viewpoint to this extraordinary time in history. I like to think of myself as a Christian and try to follow Jesus' example of open mindedness, tolerance and kindness. It's always good to look at things from another perspective and like listening to 5 witnesses to a road accident who have all seen the incident but from a different angle none should be dismissed without careful thought and consideration. This book made me think which has to be good.

2 people found this helpful

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Miranda Mc

Remarkable imagining of the last days of Jesus

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 January 2019

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I saw this as a play at the NT with Fiona Shaw as Mary and quite liked it but it wasn’t nearly as clear and powerful as this version.
I imagine this account of Mary as an ordinary women and her son a mortal, even if an extraordinary one, will have caused much controversy.

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Anna T

A poetic, deeply moving account of Mary

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 January 2020

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This book was not what I expected. When I read the description it didn't click that it was Mary from the Bible that the book was written about.

I found it quite hard to get into but once I did I found myself being incredibly moved by this account of a mother trying to come to terms with the death of her son.

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Jasmine P. Plant

A Mother's view of the life and death of her son.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 July 2018

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Toidbin is intuitively concerned with the Mother of Jesus thoughts about her son's life and rise to a status that she cannot comprehend. It is a harrowing tale, but beautfully written and conceived.

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