The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin
The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin
14 Rating(s)
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The Testament of Mary

Author: Colm Toibin

Narrator: Meryl Streep

Unabridged: 3 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/10/2013


Synopsis

2014 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year, Literary Fiction, and Solo Narration—Female!

Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín's provocative, haunting, and indelible portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.

In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son’s crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel, who are her keepers. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God; nor that his death was “worth it”; nor that the “group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye,” were holy disciples.

Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the cross until her son died—she fled, to save herself), and her judgment of others is equally harsh. This woman whom we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone. Tóibín’s tour de force of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed.

About Colm Toibin

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of The Writers' Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022–2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize. He was also awarded the Bodley Medal, the Würth Prize for European Literature, and the Prix Femina spécial for his body of work. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Julie on March 31, 2024

I read The Testament of Mary before dawn on this Easter Sunday. A coincidence, but not altogether without significance. It is an Easter Sunday direct-dialed from heaven: every color in the dyed-egg basket is reflected in spring’s delicate light - from the cornflower blue sky to the coral-pink sunris......more

Goodreads review by Jane on January 13, 2019

3.5 stars rounded up for the audio version of The Testament of Mary, as narrated by Meryl Streep. This is Mary's story as she tells it. Her thoughts, opinions, and self-doubt all laid bare in a most intimate fashion on the page. There are no words wasted in the telling of this narrative, which resul......more