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Our review – Rapture by Emily Maguire

Sep 2024

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Author: Maguire, Emily

Category: Fiction, Historical fiction

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

ISBN: 9781761470899

RRP: 32.99

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Synopsis

An imaginative and audacious historical novel from the best-selling author of Love Objects and An Isolated Incident.

'Rapture is astonishing – a scorching vision of a book. Drawing on history, legend, speculation and gossip, Maguire's medieval girl-Pope story is made of many things: flesh and earth and blood; ambition and abnegation; rage and transcendence, all pouring into this pagan, biblical, strange and mighty work from an imagination in soaring flight.' – Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional 'In Rapture, Maguire has performed the dazzling feat of making the earthly feel miraculous and the heavenly feel intimate. This glorious novel both burns and sings.' – Fiona McFarlane, author of The Sun Walks Down 'Profound, frightening and extraordinarily beautiful.' - Evie Wyld, author of The Bass Rock The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wife or nun, Agnes enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and devote her life to the study she is denied as a woman. So begins the life of John the Englishman: a matchless scholar and scribe of the revered Fulda monastery, then a charismatic heretic in an Athens commune and, by her middle years, a celebrated teacher in Rome. There, Agnes (as John) dazzles the Church hierarchy with her knowledge and wisdom and finds herself at the heart of political intrigue in a city where gossip is a powerful—and deadly—currency. And when the only person who knows her identity arrives in Rome, she will risk everything to once again feel what it is to be known—and loved. Praise for Rapture: 'This book is so alive and real I was totally hooked from the start. It captures both the grit of daily human life and the soaring ecstasies of the eternal burning spirit. Another masterpiece from Maguire.' – Bri Lee, author of The Work 'Rapture is the perfect title for this wonderful, original story of devotion, passion and purpose. I felt myself transported, seamlessly, to another time, long ago, with Agnes, the novel's determined protagonist, as my guide. I loved her.' – Sofie Laguna, author of Infinite Splendours 'An enthralling evocation of a world in turmoil, threaded through by the life of a singular, brilliant woman. The wonder of Rapture is that Maguire makes a time more than a thousand years distant feel so vivid and its concerns so alive. Agnes's choices are enduring: How do you become your truest self; what might you sacrifice along the way? This richly inhabited novel is as audacious and unwavering as Agnes herself.' – Lucy Treloar, author of Days of Innocence and Wonder 'A strange and magnificent vision of a novel: in Agnes, Maguire embodies a ferocity of both the mind and body, ambition and humility, wisdom, desire, sacrifice, grace and a refusal to follow the path laid down for her. Maguire's language and storytelling soars. I was transfixed. Maguire effortlessly transitions to deeply researched and utterly compelling historical fiction in the style of Lauren Groff, Hannah Kent, Anthony Doerr and Pip Williams.' – Kate Mildenhall, author of The Hummingbird Effect

When Emily Maguire heard the amazing medieval tale of young Agnes, who disguised herself as a boy, followed her lover to a monastery, and ended up on the throne of St Peter, historical facts being scarce, she sensed delicious opportunities for a novel, and Rapture was born.

We know the skeleton of the plot, but Agnes’ dangerous, often horrific life, hiding her true identity and struggling to suppress carnal desires in favour of the spiritual, makes an astonishing, absorbing read.

As a motherless five-year-old, Agnes is encouraged to read by her father who is known as the English priest. However, secretly sitting under the dinner table, Agnes learns more from talk of his often gruesome exploits in Francia, finding souls for God, and also expounding the wonders of heaven. She questions popular beliefs about God and later becomes fluent in Greek and Latin.

Seeing women caught in thankless and endless drudges, she is determined to escape marriage. But she’s attracted to Randulf, a liberated Benedictine monk. They fall in love and he introduces her to the rapture of physical pleasure. But knowing her true desire, he helps her dress as a male and escape her stifling surroundings.

So begins her dramatic journey at the monastery at Fulda, in Athens, and finally Rome. However, she always struggles with jealous monks who suspect her, and continually wrestles with her desire for carnal rapture, while still embracing the spiritual rapture through nature and her running conversation with God.

When the only person who knows her true identity visits her in Rome, she has to make an agonising choice.

An excellent foray into the history and dictates of Roman Catholicism through Agnes’ insightful journey and self-knowledge, Rapture is a most informative and exciting read as we travel with Agnes to find her destiny.

Reviewed by Judith Grace

Download book club notes for Rapture by Emily Maguire

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Maguire is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books. Her 2016 novel, An Isolated Incident, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and her book Love Objects was shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the Year in 2022.

She was twice named as a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year, was the 2018/2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and the 2023 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Emily has an MA in literature and works as a mentor to young and emerging writers.

Visit Emily Maguire’s website