The Wild Mother
A Novel
Elizabeth Cunningham
Paperback
ISBN 9781958972021
$24.99 US
eBook available
April 11, 2023
Enter the world of The Wild Mother—modern fairytale, bold biblical midrash, filled with the psychological depth and imaginative originality for which the author of The Maeve Chronicles is known. Elizabeth Cunningham's classic feminist novel is as fresh and timeless today as when it was first released in 1993 to critical acclaim.
Adam Underwood and Eva Brooke appear to be made for each other. Both are single parents. Both are academics, he a dazzling, enigmatic professor of Alchemy, she a humble but dedicated professor of Fairytales. Adam's children, Ionia and Fred, share a latchkey after school with Eva's precocious son, Jason. So why don't Adam and Eva marry and live happily ever after?
Eva can't help wondering. Pathologically polite, she cannot bring herself to ask personal questions. She struggles not to find it strange that Adam has never so much as mentioned his children's absent mother. Nor has Adam's own mother-cum-housekeeper, the feisty, outspoken Ursula, ever uttered her name. Yet Eva glimpses the missing woman in ten-year-old Ionia's haunted and haunting purple eyes and in Ionia's drawings of a woman dancing on the crest of a hill, wild black hair spread out against the sky....
Then one night, she returns: Lilith, the wild mother. The precarious status quo that Eva, Adam, and their families have achieved is shattered and their world is turned inside out or, more precisely, outside in.
As wild breaks into their lives, Adam, obsessed with control, attempts to seal them all in a deadly trap. Now a crucial challenge confronts each one of them. Will these very human beings embrace their own wildness, risking all they value and understand? Or will they deny the freedom essential to Lilith's nature--and their own.
Elizabeth Cunningham is the descendant of generations of Episcopal priests. She grew up hearing rich (sometimes terrifying) liturgical and biblical language. She was also an avid reader of fairytales and fantasy novels. She was happiest in the enchanted wood of the overgrown estate next door to the church. Her religious background, the magic of fairytales, and the numinous experience of nature continue to inform her work.
Cunningham is best known for The Maeve Chronicles, a bestselling series of award-winning novels, including The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Her earlier novels include The Wild Mother, The Return of the Goddess, as well as How to Spin Gold.
Cunningham lives in High Falls, New York. She loves to hike, garden, nap with her cat, and practice Tai Chi Chuan. She is passionate about the preservation and restoration of her region and the planet. She supports an end to reliance on fossil fuels.
In addition to writing, Cunningham is in private practice as a counselor. She is a fellow emeritus of Black Earth Institute and writes regularly for Feminism and Religion blogsite. The mother of grown children, she lives with her husband, Douglas Smyth, and her cat.
“A wondrous tale. Stand strongly among such classics as The Mists of Avalon.” —Library Journal
“The everyday magic of self-discovery—a beguiling tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly
“Cunningham marries the social novel of manners to a genuine goddess spirituality.” —Rachel Pollock, author of Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
“Part allegory, part thriller, a story to nourish the contemporary wild soul.” —Sally Van Wagenen Keil, author of Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines
“The Wild Mother will take you on a journey through another world, with profound implications for the way you envision your own.” —Lilith Magazine
“Unfolds swiftly, inexorably, like a Greek tragedy, yet the characters are allowed to change and grow…A vital book with a message of hope for all.” —Bones & Flesh
“A highly entertaining fantasy that points up much of the inner conflict of today’s women.” —Magical Blend
“This could be the next Mists of Avalon.” —Booklist
“This captivating novel offers many heroines: one for childhood, one for motherhood, one for old age, and one for all the Wild places. Cunningham is wise enough to sow the seeds of our own transformation in all her characters.” —Valerie Andrews, author of A Passion for this Earth
Recommended by the reviewers of:
Kirkus Review
Woodstock Times
Charleston Gazette
Creation Spirituality
Friend’s Review
Iowa Woman
Whole Life Times
Phenome News
Napra Trade Journal
