The Testament Of Mary | Colm Toibin

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.

(Edmund White, Irish Times). Depicting the harrowing losses and evasions that can go on between mothers and sons...Toibin creates a reversed Pieta: 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).