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THE GOOD MEN
A Novel of Heresy
by Charmaine Craig
CHARMAINE CRAIG was studying medieval literature as an undergraduate at Harvard when she read the fourteenth-century testimony of Grazida Lizier, a young woman tried by the inquisition against heretical Christians in medieval France. Haunted by the document, she decided to write a novel based on it.
"As a writer, she’s the real deal….The action takes place in Montaillou, a tiny mountain village falling under the influence of saintly wanderers known as Good Men who preach that the world was created by the devil and should be despised. The narrative, which is based on historical sources, unfolds from several points of view: those of an alcoholic widow, a lustful village priest, a cobbler struggling with his homosexuality, a conflicted inquisitor. Craig has the gift of finding complexity in simple people, and she tells their stories in fluid, shapely prose that blends mysteries both religious and erotic with the…realities of peasant life.”
–Time
“Stunning…steeped in medieval realities of the Inquisition.”
–Los Angeles Times
“A tour de force.”
–Chicago Tribune
“A lush, textured story about sex and abstinence, humanity and sainthood, men and women, celibacy and heresy that resonates as much in the twenty-first century as the fourteenth.”
–Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe
“I have never read so powerful an account, fictive or historical, of the Cathar rebels against the Roman Catholic Church. Craig’s vision encompasses an entire culture, which was forever destroyed.”
–Harold Bloom
“A rich tale of the struggle between spiritual thirst and bodily hunger…Craig deserves critical acclaim…for creating a novel that is not only highly readable, but one that forces her audience to squirm in the face of historical tragedy–and squirm we should.”
–Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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Charmaine Craig
Author of THE GOOD MEN
Photo Credit:
© Marion Ettlinger
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