Description

The newest novel by Mary Saracino tells the story of Madalene Ross, a thirty-year-old American who "lives in her head," cut off from her body, her heart, and her sense of purpose in the world. En route to and from her job as a computer programmer in Minneapolis, Madalene is hounded on the downtown streets by a homeless woman who asks "Got a match?" At night bizarre dreams haunt her sleep. Women fly through rooftops, chant in ancient temples, paint tongues of fire on vivid white canvases.

Madalene's story is interwoven with the lives of three women: Rosalina, a priestess of Persephone in 70 B.C.E. Sicily; Ziza, a strega (Italian witch) in 16th century northeastern Italy, and Ibla, an herbalist and painter in 18th century southern Italy. An environmentally compromised lake in Sicily also acts as a portal to the rich tradition of pre-Christian spirituality that lies beneath Church dogma.

The Singing of Swans takes readers on a multi-century journey to uncover long-silenced traditions, crack Madalene's spiritual code and reclaim her soul. Elements of magical realism dovetail with historical storytelling as this compelling tale of redemption unfolds.

Media Mentions

Sage Woman review of The Singing of Swans
MatriFocus Cross-Quarterly review of The Singing of Swans
Curled Up With A Good Book review of The Singing of Swans

Praise and Reviews

The Lambda Literary Foundation named The Singing of Swans as a finalist in the Spirituality category in its 19th Annual (2007) Lambda Literary Awards.

"The Singing of Swans is a remarkable narrative calling -- even compelling -- us to connect with our own ancestral roots, to seek our own inner wisdom, and to reclaim our own inner voices!"

Margaret Starbird
author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar
and Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile

"The Roman poet Ovid sang of the beautiful Sicilian lake where Persephone descended to the otherworld -- a lake now dying from overdevelopment. No siren's song could be more commanding than this novel centered on that magical tale. Generations of women of the streghe tradition -- call them pagans, call them witches -- join their voices in this tightly wrought magical chorus,"

Patricia Monaghan
author of The Goddess Path
& The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog

"The Singing of Swans is more than a novel. It combines an immense amount of learning, a great novelist's ability to weave the present, the past, the far past, and the future into a spell-binding story...and to transmute all this into an offer of life to all of us trapped in contemporary deadening cultures....This novel may give you the courage to quit your dead-end job, book a flight to Italy, and, like Madalene, 'exhilarated by the possibilities,' howl 'at the brilliant blue Sicilian sky,'"

Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum
author of Dark mother: african origins and godmothers

Buy

Buy The Singing of Swans from Pearlsong Press
Buy The Singing of Swans at Amazon.com
Buy The Singing of Swans from The Book Depository - free shipping worldwide

Related Links

Pearlsong Press webpage for The Singing of Swans
Mary Saracino's website