Deborah Larsen

From the novel’s bloody opening to its arresting conclusion—by her own choice the heroine, Mary Jemison, does not return to white society—Deborah Larsen never flinches from the violence and the splendor that marked the settling of the New World.

The story of novelist and poet Deborah Larsen's young womanhood, this book is both an exquisitely crafted spiritual memoir and a beautifully nuanced view of life in the convent in the 1960s. The reader also learns of the “road out” that led her back to the rich outside world.

Here we encounter Matteo Ricci, the resourceful Jesuit who entered China in 1583 and stayed for a quarter century. Pondering cultural accommodation as well as faith, many of the poems in this book center on actual events: Ricci’s dressing as a Buddhist; his awe-inspiring map (with China shrewdly centered).