The Magdalen
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The wide open spaces of Connemara, filled with nothing but sea and sky, are all lost to Esther Doyle when she is betrayed by her lover, Conor. Rejected by her family, she is sent to join the 'fallen women' of the Holy Saints Convent in Dublin where, behind high granite walls, she works in the infamous Magdalen laundry while she awaits the birth of her baby.
At the mercy of nuns, and working mostly in silence alongside the other 'Maggies,' Esther spends her days in the steamy, sweatshop atmosphere of the laundry. It is a grim existence, but Esther has little choice--the convent is her only refuge, and its orphanage will provide shelter for her newborn child.
Yet despite the harsh reality of her life, Esther gains support from this isolated community of women. Learning through the experiences and the mistakes of the other 'Maggies,' she begins to recognize her own strengths and determination to survive. She recognizes, too, that it will take every ounce of courage to realize her dream of a new life for her and her child beyond they grey walls of the Holy Saints Convent.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Holy Saints Magdalen Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women was a prisonlike institution in Dublin where unmarried pregnant women were sent in shame until they delivered, after which, without exception, the church took their babies away for adoption. In 1951, Esther Doyle of rural Connemara has no thoughts of such a place when she escapes her grim home life her drunken fisherman father is drowned, and her mother can't cope with Esther's young retarded sister for a brief romance that leaves her pregnant. In desperation, she turns to the Home, where she soon discovers that living conditions are nearly unbearable. The mostly unsympathetic and even cruel nuns oversee a sweatshop-like laundry in which women slave every day except on Sundays. The nuns refer to them as "penitents," but the women sardonically called themselves "Maggies." Through it all, the women are bolstered by their camaraderie. After Esther has her baby, reluctantly surrendering it, she leaves but refuses to return to her family, which has rejected her. The first half of the book, telling of Esther's beginnings, rings true, but it is familiar and overlong. The real tale is the story of the Magdalen Home, a cruel institution the church maintained into the mid-20th century. The straightforward writing is without flourish, but the story is powerful and moving and Esther's unhappy experience will remain with the reader. FYI:This novel was first published in 1999 by Bantam Books. The same story was dramatized by Patricia Burke Brogan in a popular play,Eclipsed, first performed in Great Britain in 1992.
