Purchase
With the passion and grace that mark her bestselling novels of women and faith, Mary Gordon contemplates one of history's earliest and most powerful female martyrs
Viking
March 2000
Featuring: Joan of Arc
208 pages ISBN: 0670885371 Trade Size (reprint)
Add to Wish List
Historical | Non-Fiction Biography
Eternally fascinating, an enigma no less in our time than in
her own, Joan of Arc has haunted Gordon's consciousness
since childhood. Who was this girl who came from nowhere,
supported an equivocal cause, triumphed for a scant few
months, failed as a soldier, vacillated about her vision,
died in agony, was refused canonization for five hundred
years, yet, ponders Gordon, "stands alone in our imagination
for the single-minded triumph of the she--and it must be a
she--who feared nothing, knew herself right, and chosen of
the Lord?" Joan of Arc penetrates the popular cultural icon to examine
the vulnerability of a woman forced by her mission into the
public world of men, from her first march at the head of the
French soldiery at the age of seventeen to her capture by
the British in 1430, from her vilification as a witch to the
formidable legacy of her struggle. Only Gordon--a
storyteller the San Francisco Chronicle calls
"scintillating"--could breathe life into a figure so
ethereal, so puzzling, so human.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|