Lambs Of God - Softcover

Marele Day

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862300178 ISBN 13: 9781862300170

Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 1998

Synopsis

Carla, Margarita, and Iphigenia are three nuns living in a crumbling monastery on a remote island, forgotten by time, the world, and the church. Their liturgical calendar is governed by the changing of the seasons, and by the rising and setting of the sun. Their days are spent performing a ritual of prayer and storytelling, as they knit the wool of the sheep who inhabit the monastery grounds and into whose bodies they believe their deceased sisters' souls to have entered. Then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere, a priest appears. Hoping to rise in the church hierarchy, he has presented plans to his bishop to convert what he believes is an uninhabited and valuable piece of church property into a spa for the wealthy-and he has come to investigate the land. Father Ignatius is as surprised to see the nuns as they are to see a flesh-and-blood man, and what follows is the strange, moving, and often hilarious story of their struggle-a struggle of wills, but also of faith. Lambs of God is a beautifully written and haunting story of colliding traditions, conflicting beliefs, and magical trans-formations. It weaves together Christian belief, classical mythology, fairy tales, Celtic lore, and the mysteries of the natural world into one of the most memorable and gripping of contemporary novels. Like Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy, Lambs of God is a wildly original investigation into the nature and complexities of faith.

About this title

About the Author:

Marele Day is well known in her native Australia as the author of several successful crime novels, as well as short stories and poems.

From Publishers Weekly:

A man intrudes on an all but extinct order of pastoral nuns in this intriguing but heavy-handed parable from Australian crime-novelist Day. Sisters Iphigenia, Margarita and Carla live in a ruined monastery on a remote Australian island, tending their only flock: the Agnes sisters, sheep named for nuns who have died. The rhythm of life is seasonal and canonical: washing day, shearing day, Christmas, Lent. It's hard to say what year it is... until Father Ignatius arrives with a cellular phone to assess what he thought was abandoned property. A career churchman, Ignatius wants to turn a profit by transforming the forgotten nunnery into a luxury retreat for businessmen. The story takes a Stephen King turn when the nuns realize that the priest's plans threaten them. Ignatius is drugged with herbal tea, stripped, shaved and plastered up to the waist in a cast. Still, the priest's presence provokes different reactions from each nun, stirring up long-dormant secrets that threaten to tear apart their community. Ignatius himself undergoes something more than a physical transformation as he is forced to reassess the meaning of his mission in the church. Although Day has undeniable storytelling gifts and weaves together an impressive number of storytelling traditions (classical, biblical, Celtic and fairy tale), the novel's rather kitschy setup and often gruesomely graphic feminist symbolism may force even sympathetic readers to share Ignatius's feeling that "There were parts of the story that even he was having trouble swallowing." BOMC, One Spirit Book Club and Quality Paperback Club featured alternate selections; foreign rights sold in the U.K. (Anchor), Australia (Allen & Unwin), Germany (Piper) and the Netherlands (Vassalecci). (Apr.) FYI: Lambs of God has been optioned by Fox 2000, with Winona Ryder as producer and costar.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1862300178
• ISBN 13: 9781862300170
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336