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A Stolen Tongue
by Sheri Holman
Published: 2008-07-08
Paperback : 343 pages
Paperback : 343 pages
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A riveting mystery that recalls the work of Umberto Eco and Barry Unsworth, A Stolen Tongue is the captivating debut novel that launched critically acclaimed author Sheri Holman's literary career.
In 1483, Father Felix Fabri sails from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the ...
In 1483, Father Felix Fabri sails from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the ...
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Introduction
A riveting mystery that recalls the work of Umberto Eco and Barry Unsworth, A Stolen Tongue is the captivating debut novel that launched critically acclaimed author Sheri Holman's literary career.
In 1483, Father Felix Fabri sails from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of Saint Katherine of Alexandria. But at each of the shrines he visits throughout Greece and Palestine, he finds that the remains of Katherine's body are being stolen piece by piece: her hand, her ear, and then her tongue vanish from their holy resting places. Desperate to discover the thief and save his saint from such appalling desecration, Felix is thrust into a strange mystery that takes him across the desert and plumbs the depths of his soul.
In 1483, Father Felix Fabri sails from Germany to Mount Sinai on a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of Saint Katherine of Alexandria. But at each of the shrines he visits throughout Greece and Palestine, he finds that the remains of Katherine's body are being stolen piece by piece: her hand, her ear, and then her tongue vanish from their holy resting places. Desperate to discover the thief and save his saint from such appalling desecration, Felix is thrust into a strange mystery that takes him across the desert and plumbs the depths of his soul.
The narrator of Sheri Holman's debut novel, A Stolen Tongue is Father Felix Fabri, a 15th-century monk on a pilgrimage to Alexandria, Egypt, to visit his "wife," Saint Katherine. The fact that Katherine is long dead, her various body parts distributed among reliquaries from Greece to Palestine, does not dilute Felix's passion for his spiritual mate. Indeed, from the day he first offered himself to her as a boy, it has been his life's ambition to travel to the Sinai, where she was martyred, visiting each relic along the way. But every time Felix arrives at one of these holy places, he finds a piece of Katherine gone. First her hand, then her ear, then her tongue--all stolen.
This historical mystery has many charms, not least among them Father Felix himself. Ms. Holman has done both the actual historic figure and her novel a great service by occasionally allowing this unique individual to speak in his own words (translated from the Latin by the late Aubrey Stewart) on such subjects as "Why the Eucharist May Not Be Celebrated on Shipboard" or "The Rules for Pilgrimage." It is a testament to the author's skill that the seams stitching together the fictional Felix and the historic one are well-nigh invisible.
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