American Saint
The Life of Elizabeth Seton
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this riveting biography of Elizabeth Seton critically acclaimed and bestselling author Joan Barthel tells the mesmerizing story of a woman whose life featured wealth and poverty, passion and sorrow, love and loss. Elizabeth was born into a prominent New York City family in 1774. Her father was the chief health officer for the Port of New York and she lived down the block from Alexander Hamilton. She danced at George Washington's sixty-fifth Birthday Ball wearing cream slippers, monogrammed. Catholicism was illegal in New York when she was born; Catholic priests seen in the city were arrested, sometimes hung. When Elizabeth and her wealthy husband Will sailed to Italy in a doomed attempt to cure his tuberculosis, she and her family were quarantined in a damp dungeon. And when Elizabeth later became a Catholic, she was so scorned that people talked of burning down her house. American Saint is the inspiring story of a brave woman who forged the way for the other women who followed and who made a name for herself in a world entirely ruled by men. Elizabeth resisted male clerical control of her religious order, as nuns are doing today, and the publication of her story could not be more timely. Maya Angelou has contributed the foreword.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nuns in the United States have recently come under fire from the male Catholic hierarchy for not being orthodox enough. So this compelling biography of the first American-born saint, who was also a nun, comes at an excellent time. Bestselling writer Bartel (A Death in Canaan) has constructed an exquisite story of Seton's inspiring life. She was born Elizabeth Bayley into a prominent New York Episcopalian family and, at age 19, married wealthy businessman William Magee Seton. After losing her husband to tuberculosis, she converted to Catholicism during a time of persecution and founded the Sisters of Charity. Seton faced trials in her 46 years of life but remained confident about God's will. That gave her an abiding trust in and awareness of God's constant presence in her life and the lives of others. Readers interested in Catholic history and U.S. history should not overlook this important biography.
Customer Reviews
Intelligent, soulful biography brings subject and her time to life
We don't always think of saints as real people who have led real lives in the world. Joan Barthel brings Elizabeth Seton to life as a woman of strength, humor, intelligence, and faith--and paints a compelling and beautifully researched picture of her life and times beginning in Revolution-era New York. This is an important and irresistibly readable portrait of a woman (as Gloria Steinem notes in writing about the book) "so far ahead of her time that we're still catching up with her."