A Divine Comedy

Elizabeth Cunningham

Paperback
9781948626989
US $23.99 Indiepubs Bookshop Amazon
eBook available
August 2023

The Goddess is returning!

She takes shape in the hands of an Episcopal priest’s shy, retiring wife. She invades the dreams of a grande dame who thinks women priests are a scandal. She lures a poker-playing ex-convict onto unfamiliar terrain, literally. Then there is the mysterious old man in the wood, who’s been watching, waiting for a sign of her return. 

Who is the Goddess? Where has she been for so long? What does she want from the four human beings whose lives she is turning upside down and inside out?

As they confront these questions, Esther, Spencer, Marvin and Fergus find themselves drawn together, forging friendships across boundaries of age, class and race, discovering—and recovering—powerful, erotic passions. All their encounters, with themselves and each other, lead them deeper into Blackwood, an old estate that shelters an imperiled grove of trees sacred to the Goddess, a grove it becomes their mission to save. 

The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy marks Cunningham’s first explicit exploration of Christianity and the power of a divine feminine, long forgotten, obscured, and suppressed by the Church. She went on to write The Maeve Chronicles, featuring her iconic, outspoken Celtic Magdalen. The Return of the Goddess takes the reader inside the world of Cunningham’s origins where a gap in a wall leads from the church to the sacred grove. 

Twenty-six years after its first publication The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy remains a classic in what has become a movement, both within established religions and beyond, to reclaim the goddess and to embody her return.

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.

“Cunningham knows her landscape and characters in a very rare and deep fashion.” —New England Review of Books

“Cunningham’s characters are lovingly realized, her chapters tightly spun about evocative themes, her prose is lean and empathic, and her politics correct.” —Yoga Journal

“Gracefully crosses the borders of plausibility into a luminous metaphysical realm.” —Publishers Weekly

“This contemporary treatment of the popular goddess theme is virtually unique in present-day fiction.” —Wisconsin Bookwatch

“A highly sexual, highly sensual spiritual realm…Passionate and unified at the same time.” —Woodstock Times

“The Lady permeates this book with her irrepressible sensual magic.” —Ione

“A literally charming novel about a modern day woman’s discovery of the Goddess.” —Starhawk, author of The Spiral Dance and Dreaming the Dark 

“There is no let-up in the unfolding of this celebration of how four remarkable people grow into godhood, the journey all love tries to make. Cunningham tells how the wise body wakes up and learns the thrilling—but also blessing—movements of the ancient dance, where personal love slowly learns to protect the world all around its once selfish frenzy. A book to make us close to the earth, and to each other.” —Robert Kelly, author of Cat Scratch Fever, The Scorpions, and Doctor of Silence

“This is an extraordinary book to share with all those you love—family, friend or lover. A good story told with wit, compassion and sexiness, it’s about the most important things in our lives. And it has the power to build bridges across a gap of silence.” —Robin Larsen, Author with Stephen Larsen of A Fire in the Mind: Life of Joseph Campbell 

“A magical tale of spiritual renewal…Brings together themes of interest to women such as earth-centered life, the need for feminine rituals, and the link between spirituality and sexuality.” —Values and Visions

“This is how we long to meet the Immortals—in the flesh! In The Return of the Goddess the double entendre of passion drives the plot. The Church of our Fathers and the Mother’s sacred ground collide and explode into sparks. The pace is perfect, her images linger. She’s packed a terrific story into a full deck of divinatory cards, playing with everyone’s current marital and spiritual discord. Such a pleasure to read—so sweet and sexy and politic—laced with mother wit and ultimately satisfying.” —Nor Hall, author of The Moon and the Virgin and Those Women 

“One of the best novels I’ve read in some time…The story is the type that wraps you in a cocoon of warm delight, engulfing you in the living, breathing fires of its characters.” —Friends Review 

“An entertaining novel written with grace, humor and perceptiveness…A delightful rarity.” —Convergence

“This compelling novel tells many stories on different levels. The legendary, the mystical and the poetic weave in and out of the characters’ lives. The novel is about truth and fighting against evil, about the earth and its riches, about the goddess’s fight against the Father Church, and about women’s struggles to create themselves.” —The Christian Century

“A wonderful book…A love song to the land.” —Gazette Advertiser

“A tremendously entertaining novel of self-discovery.” —Taconic Week

“Readers will be fascinated and caught up in the fanciful spirit.” —West Coast Review of Books