The year is 1906. The location is the priory of the Sisters of the Crucifixion in upstate New York. Mariette Baptiste is a beautiful 17-year-old postulant when she joins the order, against the wishes of her father. She quickly becomes a favorite of the other sisters until she begins to exhibit signs of the stigmata — bleeding from locations of Christ’s wounds when he was nailed to the cross.
Some of the sisters believe her and adore her, while others insist she is a clever fraud or a sexual hysteric.
What’s the truth?
This is the question at the heart of Ron Hansen’s mesmerizing and provocative novel, Mariette in Ecstasy.
I first read this novel when it was published in 1991, and just reread it to make sure it still holds a secure place on my list of The Most Important Novels in My Life. It does. Why?
This haunting, melodic, vivid story woke me up to what “voice” means in fiction, and the impression the novel made on me then remains indelible today.
I became immersed in the strange, spartan, and superstitious world of the convent and the extreme religious devotion of its sisters. And mesmerized by the language of the novel:
Mariette’s “wet blue eyes are overawed as she stares ahead at a wall and she seems to be listening to something just above her, as a girl might listen to the cooing of pigeons.”
“Blood scribbles down her wrists and ankles and scrawls like red handwriting on the floor.”
“Waterdrops from the night’s dew haltingly creep down green reeds.”
The novel is short (179 pages). The limited plot unfolds in vignettes and fragments, and Hansen doesn’t provide an easy answer to whether or not Mariette is God’s vessel, which only adds to the enigma, tension, and contrasts: Madness vs. divine possession. Saint vs. fraud. Sexual rapture vs. religious ecstasy.
In 1224, St. Francis of Assisi is considered to have experienced the first recorded case of the stigmata in Christian history. Did it really happen? Has it since?
The beauty of literature is its mystery.
