A Stolen Tongue

by Sheri Holman

Overview

“Part rollicking historical potboiler, part theological mystery” from the acclaimed author of The Dress Lodger and The Mammoth Cheese (Entertainment Weekly).

A riveting mystery that recalls the work of Umberto Eco and Barry Unsworth, A Stolen Tongue is the captivating debut novel that launched critically acclaimed author Sheri Holman’s literary career.

In 1483, Father Felix Fabri sails from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of Saint Katherine of Alexandria. But at each of the shrines he visits throughout Greece and Palestine, he finds that the remains of Katherine’s body are being stolen piece by piece: her hand, her ear, and then her tongue vanish from their holy resting places. Desperate to discover the thief and save his saint from such appalling desecration, Felix is thrust into a strange mystery that takes him across the desert and plumbs the depths of his soul.

“Holman seduces you into a world of priests, rogues, saints, a world bright with horizon, wonder, piety. Her prose, tart, racy, and somber, will sing in your soul a long while.”—Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Angela’s Ashes



“Holman tells a fascinating story. From the opening scene in Crete to the harrowing finale in the Sinai desert, she knows how to create suspense.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Sheri Holman writes with extraordinary assurance and style.”—Miranda Seymour, author of Bugatti Queen

“The best historical thriller I have read since Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.”—Alain de Botton, author of The Course of Love

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555847678
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	02/26/2020
Series:	Books That Changed the World
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	356
Sales rank:	482,458
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Sheri Holman is the author of A Stolen Tongue; Th e Dress Lodger, a New York Times Notable Book; and Th e Mammoth Cheese, short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and a San Francisco Chronicle and Publishers Weekly Book of the Year.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Birth:

June 1, 1966

Place of Birth:

Richmond, Virginia

Education:

B.A. in Theatre from the College of William and Mary, 1988

Editorial Reviews

Widely varied notions of faith and mission, from the conventional to the bizarre, color this intriguing historical thriller about a 15th-century pilgrimage from Germany to Mt. Sinai. The narrative takes the form of a journal kept by Dominican Father Felix Fabri, beginning at sea in 1483. Felix seeks to visit the relics of his spiritual wife, St. Katherine of Alexandria, on whom he has developed a fixation that might strike contemporary readers as not being entirely in keeping with his vows-though such eroticized spirituality was not uncommon at the time. As pieces of Katherine's body disappear from churches along his party's route, Felix faces a troubling mystery made more strange by the appearance of a young woman named Arsino, whose possibly mad communications with the saint have earned her the sobriquet, Tongue of St. Katherine. The pilgrims' voyage is arduous enough, but with the added intrigue of the disappearing relics, and conflicts that try Felix's faith and corrupt his judgment, they will be pushed to the brink of despair. First-novelist Holman pulls her readers along with odd riddles and careful suspense. As absorbing as is her portrayal of the premodern world is, her feel for timeless ironies is also sure: Felix decries the strange, unholy ways of the "Saracens" while he searches for his dead "wife," whose dried-out tongue he keeps in a pouch around his neck. While the plot's resolution is a bit unsatisfying, this is a strong debut, an often enthralling yarn that draws the reader right in among the pilgrims on their harrowing trek. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Obsessed with spiritual "marriage" to the martyr St. Katherine of Alexandria, Father Felix Fabri plans to visit her tomb on a journey to the Holy Land with a group of German pilgrims. Along the way, however, the group stops at shrines containing relics of the saint, only to find that someone has stolen them. Fifteenth-century culture springs to life through the voice of this educated, religious, witty, and well-spoken observer. A moving first novel; essential for historical fiction readers.

Library Journal

In an unusual, probing debut, 15th-century Palestine is the destination for a group of German pilgrims, who arrive gratefully in the Holy Land after a perilous sea voyage, only to lose much of what they hold most dear.

Fishing the corpse of a fellow pilgrim from a harbor in Crete to give him a Christian burial, Friar Felix Fabri and his patron Lord Tucher escort the dead man to a church containing a relic of the Friar's heavenly bride, the martyr Saint Katherine—and find it stolen. So it goes across the Mediterranean: Whenever they reach a location supposed to possess relics of Katherine, Felix learns that they've just been filched. A woman named Arsinoë, who joins the pilgrims on board ship, begins to seem a likely suspect: She is believed to be the "Tongue of Saint Katherine," through whom the saint speaks to those on earth. The suspect's odd behavior takes an even stranger twist when she assumes her Greek husband's identity after his death en route. Other deaths follow when the Holy Land is reached, leaving the Friar torn: Is Arsinoë really what she thinks she is, or is she dangerously delusional, as her pursuing brother Niccolo claims. By misleading her brother, Felix helps her to get a head start on a trek across the desert to Mount Sinai, home of Katherine's shrine, then learns that she may be bent on destroying what he has crossed the world to see. The final stages of the journey bring privation, betrayal, and death to most of his fellow travelers, including his patron and Arsinoë. Having barely survived himself, the friar is left a wiser man, to contemplate his harrowing experience with what remains of his faith.

Light humor and deep tragedy coexist uneasily here, with the latter ultimately triumphant, but the unevenness doesn't change the fact that this is a rich, surprisingly compelling tale of faith and spiritual transformation.

Kirkus Reviews