Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2014
400 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
Every era must retell and reimagine the Maid of Orleans's extraordinary story in its own way, and in Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, the superb novelist and memoirist Kathryn Harrison gives us a Joan for our time - a shining exemplar of unshakable faith, extraordinary courage, and self-confidence during a brutally rigged ecclesiastical inquisition and in the face of her death by burning.
Deftly weaving historical fact, myth, folklore, artistic representations, and centuries of scholarly and critical interpretation into a compelling narrative, she restores Joan of Arc to her rightful position as one of the greatest heroines in all of human history.
"Harrison joins the psychobiography school of life writing, doing so with memorable writing and an energetic approach." - Kirkus
"In the end, Harrison's jumble of biography and hagiography falls between two stools." - Publishers Weekly
"For general readers interested in biographies of renowned figures." - Library Journal
"If you want a badass heroine like Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild crossed with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (only with angels & Jesus) read Kathryn Harrison's hair-raising bio of Joan of Arc - the best of six I've read... This year's cult book." - Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and Lit
"A girl walks into a prophecy and winds up a myth. How does that even happen? In Joan of Arc, Kathryn Harrison makes the most improbable of lives - that of the restless farmer's daughter who casts a spell over 15th century France - seem possible again." - Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra
"I'm impressed by the way Kathryn Harrison so brilliantly blends narrative and scholarship in this gorgeous rendering of Joan of Arc's story. Harrison draws on her deep understanding of religion, feminism and literature to produce the biography of one of the most interesting women in history." - Roxana Robinson, author of Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life
This information about Joan of Arc was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels Envy, Enchantments, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water. She has also written the memoirs The Kiss and The Mother Knot; a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago; a biography, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; and a collection of essays, Seeking Rapture.
Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Vogue, O magazine, Salon, and other publications.
She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
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