Synopses & Reviews
In an increasingly secular age of high-speed travel and advanced technology, it is surprising to learn that the ancient tradition of religious pilgrimage is on the rise. Charting this phenomenon from Ireland to India, Rosemary Mahoney turns her sharp eye and discerning ear on the pilgrims she meets in the course of six extraordinary journeys. Never a passive observer, Mahoney is a full participant, soldiering barefoot through the three-day penitential Catholic pilgrimage on Irelands Station Island, walking the five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in Spain, braving the icy bathwater at Lourdes, where pilgrims beseech the Blessed Virgin for miraculous cures. In Varanasi, Indias holiest city, Mahoney befriends a curious young boy whose intelligence and sensitivity provide startling insights into this ancient culture, with its public cremations and elaborate prayer rituals. And in the Holy Land, she rows alone across the Sea of Galilee to spend an unnerving, hilarious night camped below the Golan Heights in search of the essence of Jesus, a vigil punctuated by a pack of howling cats and a bad case of the jitters.
What Mahoney discovers among the true believers and charlatans, the holy and the profane, is the single thread that binds all religions: the desire for a relationship with God. "If I was struck by anything," she writes, "it was the shared human struggle to find reason, to confront the natural fear of uncertainty and obscurity." The Singular Pilgrim is a book less about religion than about belief. "An affecting visit to the ancient, humbling act of pilgrimage . . . [Mahoney] conveys a genuine sense of spiritual mindfulness on the road, and there is no denying that these pilgrimages paid her back in full" (Kirkus Reviews).
Review
"In this reflection on her experiences in Christian and Hindu holy places, the critically acclaimed author of previous books on Lillian Hellman and Ireland is deeply skeptical, occasionally biting and sporadically hopeful about the possibility that a transcendent God might exist....Readers seeking small marvels, instead of life-changing miracles, will find this a provocative and illuminating armchair adventure." Publishers Weekly
Review
"She travels alone - all the better to accompany us, her readers, showering us with her gifts of observation and expression. And in the very tartness of her refusals to be taken in, she is far from what she calls 'oblivious to God.'" Margaret Visser, author of The Way We Are, Rituals of Dinner, and The Geometry of Love
Synopsis
One of our most engaging and astute social observers, Rosemary Mahoney "writes with the art of a skilled fiction writer" (Doris Grumbach). The Singular Pilgrim consists of a series of personal accounts based on pilgrimages Mahoney made over the past three years, including the Irish Catholic pilgrimage to Station Island; visits to holy sites in Israel, such as Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Galilee; the Hindu pilgrimage to Varanasi, the holiest city in India; the pilgrimage to Lourdes, France; the walking pilgrimage from Santa Fe to Chimayo, New Mexico; and the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.
Mahoney clearly understands the weight of holy places and the feelings pilgrims have for them. The voices and actions of individuals on the road, cut loose from formal religious institutions, become universal. Pilgrimages usually involve adventure and physical hardship as well as a certain theatricality. Mahoney makes apparent why pilgrimages still thrive and are even enjoying a resurgence. Her approach to this vivid material is fueled by her curiosity, wit, and physical bravery. The result is a singular collection of adventures, with religion and the search for God as their impetus.
As Jonathan Raban wrote of her book Whoredom in Kimmage, "Mahoney is a wonderfully effective catalytic agent: she goes to Ireland and just makes the country happen around her." Many other countries come to life in The Singular Pilgrim.
Synopsis
The Singular Pilgrim is a riveting account of one woman's personal quest to find the root of belief among modern religious pilgrims. The intrepid Rosemary Mahoney undertakes six extraordinary journeys: visiting an Anglican shrine to Saint Mary in Walsingham, England; walking the five-hundred-mile Camino de Santiago in northern Spain; braving the icy bathwater at Lourdes; rowing alone across the Sea of Galilee to spend a night camped below the Golan Heights; viewing Varanasi, Indias holiest city, from a rubber raft on the Ganges; soldiering barefoot through the three-day penitential Catholic pilgrimage on Irelands Station Island. A fiercely observant traveler and an insightful writer, Mahoney offers a witty and provocative chronicle of her adventures.
About the Author
ROSEMARY MAHONEY is the author of Whoredom in Kimmage, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the New York Times Notable Book The Early Arrival of Dreams. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, she lives in Rhode Island.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction 1 1 Walsingham 8 2 Lourdes 50 3 El Camino De Santiago 74 4 Varanas I 144 5 The Holy Land 253 6 Saint Patricks Purgatory 335 Bibliography 405 Acknowledgments 406