The Testament of Mary

Colm Toibin

Sep 2013 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Meryl Streep

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

+¹¹qqŌ🌹1 Daughter of the Most High God. The Most chaste spouse of the Holy Spirit, is Mary! ³She is the fastest road to Jesus. God will save all thru her. She is compassion and answers you. You will see Her blue army on that day & She will bring peace very soon here. Her Immaculate Heart will triumph.Christ will be your Judge. He Will defend her. You will know Her Son. The truth. I would beg for mercy if I were you. Tisk, tisk. uncultured author of the dark one 🌹

About the author

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; 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 has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.