The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

Andrea Geary is an agricultural reporter for The Manitoba Co-operator.

This is the story of two women who share a day’s journey to the Grotto
of Mary Magdalene, atop St. Baume in France. Like the thousands of other
women who have made the pilgrimage to the Grotto over the centuries,
Melody and Jane carry their personal burdens of sorrows and wishes to
the sacred site.

Melody sets off on the journey with an optimistic view of her future.
She is happy living in France and studying arts at a college, after
divorcing her unfaithful husband and leaving Canada. However, her high
spirits are slightly hampered by the presence of Jane, a younger woman
she met at the Institute. Jane is having doubts about her talent as an
artist and about her marriage. She is slightly envious of Melody’s
confident freedom, until she sees that Melody is also fettered by her
past. An encounter with a priest who confesses his secrets to Melody
turns the journey around for the women. Melody starts to question her
present emotional and spiritual equilibrium, only to have it shatter
when Jane angers her. She is faced with the challenge of having to
reconstruct it differently.

Doucet was inspired to write the novel after he visited the Grotto. His
respect for the beauty of Provence’s countryside comes through in his
writing, as does his insight into women’s emotions and dreams. His
novel looks thoughtfully at today’s women, showing that they are not
entirely different from the women of Mary Magdalene’s time.