the book of longings by sue monk kidd summary

Ana grew up with Judas Iscariot, an orphaned cousin who is more like an older brother to her. Now, she aspires to be a writer, despite the social conventions that denied women opportunities to express themselves in writing. With her father’s encouragement and the support of her paternal aunt Yaltha, Ana developed a keen love of storytelling. Unlike most girls of her time, Ana has an education, is well-read and well-versed in the classics of Antiquity.

She lives shielded from the harsh realities of the Roman occupation of the Jewish lands.

The novel begins in Sepphoris, where 14-year-old Ana, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Matthias (the head scribe to Herod Antipas, the Roman governor of Galilee), enjoys a privileged upbringing in court. Kidd divides the novel into five sections based on where Ana lives: Sepphoris in central Galilee Nazareth Alexandria, Egypt Jerusalem and Lake Mareotis in Egypt. This study guide uses the 2020 Viking hardcover edition. If true, that would make the wife of Jesus the most present absence in recorded human history. The Book of Longings, a New York Times best seller, earned critical plaudits for both its historical realism and for its daring premise that Christ and his ministry were shaped at least in part from his relationship with a woman he loved very much not as a God but as a man. Part meticulously researched historical fiction and part provocative feminist theological speculation, The Book of Longings is supremely a love story between Jesus ben Joseph, an itinerant stonemason and part-time carpenter from Nazareth, and Ana, a feisty, willful, passionate, privileged, and well-educated daughter of a well-placed scribe in Herod’s occupational government in Galilee, an aspiring writer who is profoundly frustrated by the limited opportunities for women to express themselves. That he might have taken a wife, as was customary, and might have had a family wider than the iconic figures of his parents Mary and Joseph has for two millennia been dismissed by Christian thinkers as unfounded and heretical. Little is known about the 33 years of the life of the Hebrew religious philosopher, social activist, and political agitator known today as Jesus Christ, save the last three years of his public ministry.

In creating a first-person narrative of the wife of Jesus, veteran novelist Sue Monk Kidd acknowledged that The Book of Longings (2020) was controversial, even incendiary.

The book of longings by sue monk kidd summary