SPRING 2013 - Ignatius Press

new SPRING books
Do No Harm A Novel
Fiorella de Maria
When a British emergency room doctor saves
the life a woman who apparently attempted
suicide, he is accused of committing a crime and
stands trial. Not only is Dr. Matthew Kemble’s
medical practice at risk, but also his liberty. If he is
found guilty of trespassing on a woman’s right to
die, he could go to jail.
The novel Do No Harm exposes the dangers faced
by conscientious doctors in Britain. Dr. Kemble’s
decision to treat a patient in defiance of her Living
Will pits him against English Law, public opinion
and his own profession. The legal and personal
battles he faces raise many questions about the role
of the physician in the modern world, contemporary
beliefs about autonomy and human rights, and the
increasingly bitter clash of values in twenty-first
century Britain.
Set in and around London, the story explores the
interrelated stories of a physician facing ruin and
imprisonment at the height of his career, his old
friend and doggedly determined lawyer, Jonathan
Kirkpatrick, and Maria, a passionate, dedicated
but intensely lonely young campaigner who while
working for the defense proves incapable of staying
out of trouble herself.
“A gripping drama of ordinary human beings
caught in a web of ethical confusions and moral
complexities. It presents to us the razor’s edge of
conscience in an age dominated by relativism:
What can people of good will do when faced with
layers of evil in contemporary society, evils that
present themselves as rational, legal, even ‘moral’
This novel is a biopsy of the sickness of late
Western society, and more importantly a sign that
we are not abandoned in the midst of it, and that
good can triumph against all odds.”
Michael D. O’Brien, author, Father Elijah
Fiorella de Maria was born in Italy of Maltese parents.
She lives in Surrey with her husband and her three
children. She won the National Book Prize of Malta
(foreign language fiction category) for her novel The
Cassandra Curse. Her first novel with Ignatius Press,
Poor Banished Children, was released in 2011 (see p. 69)
DNH-H . . . Sewn Hardcover, 235 pp, $19.95
E indicates availability as an e-Book on ignatius.com
A indicates availability as an audio download on ignatius.com
8
Shakespeare on Love
Seeing the Catholic Presence
in Romeo and Juliet
Joseph Pearce
Having given the evidence for William
Shakespeare’s Catholicism in two previous
books, literary biographer Joseph Pearce turns his
attention in this work to the Bard’s most famous
play, Romeo and Juliet.
“Star-crossed” Romeo and Juliet are
Shakespeare’s most famous lovers and perhaps the
most well-known lovers in literary history. Though
the young pair has been held up as a romantic
ideal, the play is a tragedy, ending in death. What
then, asks Pearce, is Shakespeare saying about his
protagonists Are they the hapless victims of fate,
or are they partly to blame for their deaths Is their
love the “real thing”, or is it self-indulgent passion
And what about the adults in their lives Did they
give the young people the example and guidance
that they needed
The Catholic understanding of sexual desire,
and its need to be ruled by reason, is on display in
Romeo and Juliet, argues Pearce. The play is not a
paean to romance but a cautionary tale about the
naïveté and folly of youthful infatuation and the
disastrous consequences of poor parenting. The
well-known characters and their oft-quoted lines
are rich in symbolic meaning that points us in the
direction of the age-old wisdom of the Church.
Although such a reading of Romeo and Juliet is
countercultural in an age that glorifies the heedless
and headless heart of young love, Pearce makes
his case through a meticulous engagement with
Shakespeare and his age and with the text of the
play itself.
“Joseph Pearce’s book on Romeo and Juliet
stands like a lighthouse in the murk of modern
literary criticism.”
Thomas Howard, author, Chance Or the Dance
SHAKL-P . . . Sewn Softcover, 160 pp, $14.95
See more on Shakespeare by Pearce on page 28
See plays by Shakespeare in the Ignatius Critical
Editions on pages 20-21
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