writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

freedom, the politically astute Mary will strive for independence and self‐actualization. For Mary as
for Virginia Woolf: “the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; …the tyrannies and
servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other.” 37
Part Two: From Hysteria to Sophia
Mary’s growing feminist consciousness 38 begins with her pregnancy and is established through
her work at Wellhouse 39 and the remainder of her life. Unfortunately, the story that Jesus is the Son
of God goes to the boy’s head and will permeate the lives of both son and mother for the duration of
the book. Intermittently, Jeremiah returns, and Mary kills a man to save her beloved’s life, an act
that haunts her days. In response to her despondency, Joseph rescues and brings another baby into
the house to “soothe” Mary and what ails her, “as if all a woman needs is another baby.” 40 Life in
Wellhouse becomes public, and hospice and matron have a growing reputation, not entirely positive
because of the suspicions surrounding women, especially those who work on the Sabbath. 41 Indeed,
lepers and whores consort with Mary and her twelve devotees 42 , and Wellhouse is funded in part by
Jeremiah’s illicit activities, a “sin tax” that Mary is never too proud to accept.
Several notable incidents further trouble the traditional narrative in the gospels. Jesus
determines to learn the arts of healing from his mother (who among other “miraculous” treatments
has raised a woman from the dead). Furthermore, it is Mary who stops the stoning of Mary
Magdalene in the public square, and on more than one occasion, Mary travels in disguise to save the
life of her son and MM, his wife. The private and public lives of mother and her teacher/healer son
intersect, especially when his is threatened by the Pharisees, and Mary sees her part in the trap set
by her fiction woven “all those years ago.” 43 An imperfect mother, Mary must also contend with the
sexual orientation of her adoptive daughter, Anna, who wishes to be Andrew, in defiance of yet
another patriarchal law. Elaborating on Cheryl Glenn’s original premise, Katherine Tucker writes:
“Writing women into the history of discourse allows for a disruption of myths relating to passivity
and the ‘natural’ woman. It allows us to address subjugated knowledges, challenge positivistic and
patriarchal discourses and assert women’s contribution to not only private life, but public too.” 44
Like Paul, Mary is a writer of epistles – mistress of her own narrative; she is no ‘natural’ woman –
she has considerable knowledge of both private and public spheres of life, from the excrement of a
dysentery epidemic at Wellhouse to the Roman atrocities at Gamala that prefigure Jesus’ crucifixion.
Mary’s refrain against the patriarchy of Yahweh and men’s power/ knowledge reaches a crisis in her
rebuke of the romantic advances from Caiaphas the Pharisee who figures in Jesus’ arrest and death
in the New Testament.
In The Book of Mary, Mary rails against her son’s hubris under the mantle of Son of God on many
occasions, but with increasing volume as the novel nears its climax, even though she knows her own
part in his god‐making. 45 She sees Jesus’ disciples as malingering, power‐hungry nuisances who will
ultimately betray her son, a repetition of the patriarchal structures she knows only too well. Yet she
cannot keep herself out of the political fray: Mary throws an apple at the Pharisee Micah and
overturns the moneylenders’ tables in front of the temple. But tragically, Mary does not have
sufficient power to at last save her son.
However, even in Jesus’ death, she is no passive pieta figure. She spits upon the Roman guard
who tried to remove the body; she and MM
washed away the shit and piss of [Jesus’] suffering. Removed that horrible crown of
lies. Cleansed the still weeping wounds. Kissed [his] cold lips. Wrapped [him] in
swaddling. 46
She helps to bury him in the tomb and then secretly removes the body from the “vultures” of
Jesus’ movement, setting fire to the cross and his shroud. She somehow infects Herod and Pilate
with painful ailments, and curiously, Caiaphas dies of asphyxiation in his bed. And she curses god for
not intervening on behalf of Jesus, while accepting her own culpability in her son’s death.
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