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Saint Therese of Lisieux: A short life

Saint Therese of Lisieux: A short life

by KathrynHarrison (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2003

    $4.13
Synopsis

The spread of devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux is one of the impressive religious manifestations of our time. During her few years on earth this young French Carmelite was scarcely to be distinguished from many another devoted nun, but her death brought an almost immediate awareness of her unique gifts. Through her letters, and especially through the publication of The Little Flower she soon came to mean a great deal to numberless people. Within twenty-eight years after death, this simple young nun had been canonized; and in 1944, the pope declared her the secondary patroness of France. Born to a devout Catholic bourgeois family, Therese and her four surviving sisters all became nuns. Therese had long assumed she would die young and looked forward to it as her reunion with God and her lost loved ones. When her health began to fail in 1894 (she was 20 years old and the tuberculosis that was diagnosed would end her life aged 24) she suffered her first pulmonary haemorrage on a Good Friday and rejoiced in the fact that God had announced her imminent death to her on the anniversary of his own crucifixion. Her sainthood and the continuing attraction of her life and belief stems from self-sacrifice.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 224
 Publisher: W&N
Published: 13 Nov 2003
ISBN 10: 0297847287
ISBN 13: 9780297847281
Book Overview: St Therese is one of the most popular saints On a recent eight-year world tour of her bones and relics 1.1 million people flocked to see them in the US alone, and her tour attracted enormous attention in Ireland Publishers Weekly in the US says: This is no hagiography; Harrison can be quite critical of the cosseted and self-righteous young Therese, whom she finds 'at once totally naive and infuriatingly self-important.' Readers may disagree with Harrison's interpretations, but few could quibble with her writing style, which is simply gorgeous. Her prose sings like the novels she is known for, and the biography reads like a particularly juicy novella.

Media Reviews
'Harrison's psychological analysis is compelling. She locates many of Therese's ideas in the early death or her mother and the mental illness of her father...Harrison's account of the saint's childhood is well written, sympathetic and horrifying...[a] beautifully crafted book.' -- Damien Thompson LITERARY REVIEW (November) 'Kathryn Harrison has written a biography which is neither hagiography nor hatchet-job. In her reading St Therese is a damaged soul, but almost because of that, a truly great one.' -- Caroline Moore SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (9.11.03) '...fascinating...the writing is powerful and will cause reflection.' -- Talitha Stevenson OBSERVER (30.11.03) 'Harrison knows her stuff and writes so well that the reader soaks it up.' -- Christopher Howse TELEGRAPH (29.11.03) 'Harrison offers a critical perspective of Therese, but whether praising or blaming, her style is always luxuriously poetic. Written with a passion that pervades the prose, this is a grippingly good read.' -- Anita Sethi CITY LIFE (Manchester, 19.11.03) 'insightful.' -- Bess Twiston Davies CATHOLIC HERALD (5.12.03) 'The account Harrison gives of the little nun's heroic and uncomplaining final journey cannoy fail to touch the heart.' THE UNIVERSE (7.12.03) 'The excellence of Kathryn Harrison's short book is that it is an honest and rigorous account.' -- Roz Kaveney TIME OUT (17.12.03) 'This is no holy, holy book. It's different from anything you've ever read before about the little French nun who became a Doctor of the Church. She would have loved it.' IRISH NEWS (Belfast, 19.12.03) '[an] utterly fascinating read.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1.1.04) 'Kathryn Harrison's thoughtful, succinct and elegant study...helps us make new sense of Therese by stressing how her life was a story first of all told by her parents about their imagined object, and then with herself as dynamic subject.' -- Michele Roberts NEW STATESMAN (12.1.04) 'a comprehensive version of the saint's life...well-written account in a handy size.' -- Tom Horwood CATHOLIC TIMES (18.1.04) 'There is so much to say...that a new biography...has plenty of interest for devotees..Kathryn Harrison gives us a tougher portrait than most, stressing the courage, originality and heroism of her subject.' -- Isabel Quigly TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (6.2.04) 'To my mind, and from the point of view of non-specialised readers, this is the most interesting biography since Virginia Sackville West's 'The Eage and the Dove', first published in 1943.' NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST (3.4.04) 'Kathryn Harrison's Saint Therese of Lisieux offers a biographical map that traces the life of Therese and her spiritual journey.' -- Martin Warner CHURCH TIMES (14.5.04)
Author Bio
Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels Thicker Than Water, Exposure, and Poison. She has also written a memoir, The Kiss, in which she confessed why at the age of 20 she had a sexual relationship with her father. Her personal essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and other publications. Born in 1961, she lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.