Magdalen Rising

Starred review from February 15, 2007
The prequel to " The Passion of Mary Magdalen" (2006) lets us in on how a redheaded Celtic lass wound up the literal bride of Christ, and whereas " Passion" was deeply based in the New Testament (and the sociology of Roman brothels), " Magdalen Rising" is rooted in Celtic lore. Mary, nee Maeve, was born to weather-witches on a magical, floating island somewhere in the Celtic lands. Raised with unconditional maternal love and with few restraints on body or soul, she grows to be a glorious creature, with plenty of the talents that her possibly divine mothers used for witchcraft. Yes, she has more than one mother, though it would be giving away the store to explain how. She also has a destiny that she encounters in a vision of a man in desert garb taking a leak--a trademark Cunningham touch, both intensely religious and frankly, even humorously, embodied. When she meets that man at druid school, their fated love begins to unfold. Is he Esus, doomed god of the Celts, or Jesus, doomed god of the Jews, or both? Is she goddess or woman or both? Cunningham plays with complex theological issues--the role of embodiment in salvation, the gender of divinity, the question of sacrifice--but she is preeminently a storyteller, and the reader engages those questions within a marvelous, romantic tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)