Synopsis
Ann Holmes is a devout Roman Catholic and an itinerant mushroom-picker in Washington State. She also sees visions of the Virgin Mary in the forest, and before long she has attracted a cult of fanatical followers who want to put up a church in honor of her visions. The trouble is, the local bishop has called her a fake, Ann herself is appalled by the attention she is receiving, and a simple girl who wants only to practice her faith is in danger of having her entire life misunderstood and disrupted. A New York Times Notable Book for 2003.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2004-07-01 | | Series: | Vintage Contemporaries Series | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Length: | 336 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 4.5 oz |
Publisher's Note
From David Guterson—bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars—comes this emotionally charged, provocative novel about what happens when a fifteen-year-old girl becomes an instrument of divine grace.
Ann Holmes is a fragile, pill-popping teenaged runaway who receives a visitation from the Virgin Mary one morning while picking mushrooms in the woods of North Fork, Washington. In the ensuing days the miracle recurs, and the declining logging town becomes the site of a pilgrimage of the faithful and desperate. As these people flock to Ann—and as Ann herself is drawn more deeply into what is either holiness or madness—Our Lady of the Forest—seamlessly splices the miraculous and the mundane.
Industry Reviews
"OUR LADY OF THE FOREST is an ambitious book, filled to the brim with theological discussions and wordplay, catalogues of fine art and folly--all centered on Christian faith. This is a noble effort."
Washington Post Book World (10/05/2003)
"Guterson...fills the rain forest (and the trailers and the Laundromat and the taverns) with witty, self-regarding, tough misanthropes. More than that, he shines some light on characters...we might reflexively assume to be living less than a full life: a priest, a hippie in a van, a redneck logger, a druggie runaway. Guterson's previous do-the-right-thing morality is happily set aside in favor of a humanism that allows his people to lust, to be funny, to fail, to hurt one another."
New York Times Book Review - Claire Dederer (11/02/2003)
"Sharp and incisive without a trace of either cynicism or credulity: a clever tale on a familiar fable of redemption."
Kirkus - Carolyn See (07/15/2003)
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
