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Title details for The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay - Available

The Translation of the Bones

A Novel

by Francesca Kay
Fiona Shaw
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Faith or delusion? Fantasy or fact? From the winner of the 2009 Orange New Writers Award comes a profound meditation on the nature of faith and a riveting story of religious passion gone tragically wrong in London.
When word gets out that Mary-Margaret O'Reilly, a somewhat slow-witted but apparently harmless young woman, may have been witness to a miracle, religious mania descends on the Church of the Sacred Heart by the River Thames in Battersea, London. The consequences will be profound, not only for Mary-Margaret herself but for others too—Father Diamond, the parish priest, who is in the midst of his own lonely crisis of faith, and Stella Morrison, adrift in a loveless marriage and aching for her ten-year old son, away at boarding school. Meanwhile another mother, Alice Armitage, counts the days until her soldier son comes home from Afghanistan, and Mary-Margaret's mother, Fidelma, imprisoned in her tower block, stares out over London through her window for hour after hour with nothing but her thoughts for company.

This is an exquisite novel about passion and isolation, about the nature of belief, about love and motherhood and a search for truth that goes tragically wrong. Mary-Margaret's desperate attempt to prove that Jesus loves her will change lives in a shocking way. Can anything that is good come out of it; can faith survive sacrifice and pain?

Francesca Kay has crafted a novel that is by turns sly and profound. Her crystalline prose unlocks secrets about our capacity to believe and to love. She is a writer who surprises and delights with her language and her stories.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 20, 2012

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781442358959
      • File size: 227796 KB
      • Duration: 07:54:34

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 17, 2011
      In her American debut, 2009 Orange Award–winner Kay (An Equal Stillness) displays canny insight into her characters’ quiet yearnings. Mary-Margaret O’Reilly, a dim-witted sheltered woman living with her obese, dependent mother, Fidelma, so desperately longs to make some genuine connection that she has visions of a miracle in her suburban London church. Fidelma hungers for her first love and a time when she was beautiful and unburdened by the fear that traps her in her body and her home. Stella Morrison, stuck in an empty marriage, covets time with her 10-year-old son, Felix, who is miserable at boarding school. Father Diamond longs for peace of mind and a strong reaffirmation of his religious calling. Meanwhile, Alice Armitage, an opinionated but big-hearted church member who helps with cleaning and visits church members who have become housebound, is eager for her son, Fraser, to return home from Afghanistan. By imbuing these troubled souls with transcendent innocence and memorable backstories, Kay brings depth to characters that could easily become stereotypes, all while spinning an extraordinary plot.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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