The Testament of Mary

By: Colm Toibin

Narrated by: Meryl Streep

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.

Outstanding!

Story by Colm Toibin and performance by Meryl Streep, you simply doesn't get any better than this. Superb!

Dark Revelations from Christ's skeptical Mom.

A grudging, aging Mary recounts how desciples crafted the miracles of his birth and death.

Good listen

The narration was great. The story was a little slow at the start. It was very interesting after it got going.

Meryl Streep slays this book!

I am so glad I listened to this as an audiobook, I honestly don't think I would've fully understood and felt it just reading myself. Meryl Streep breathes such life into Mary, every emotion fully acted out and enhanced by her interpretation. This is really unmissable. The work and story is powerful. Colm Toibin proves again that he is truly incomparable.

Amazing Narration, Interesting Revisionist History

While this book is based on the fantasies in the writer mind, the narration by Meryl Streep makes it worth a listen.