Micro Review 1 (2023)

 

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy Upon My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie (Bloomsbury Books)

2023 has got off to a strong start and I've had a run of good books which is cheering. I did read this one at the end of 2022 but as it is officially published this week now seems the time to talk about it.

This is a shortish book that I was always going to fall in love with as it is set in Norwich/Norfolk and about strong, literary, women,

The book tells the stories of Margery Kempe, a Norfolk woman who is considered to have written (dictated) the first autobiography in the English language, and Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress whose book the Revelations of Devine Love is the first book in English by a woman.

In this book we learn about both of their lives, and their growing and changing faiths as well as Mackenzie imagining how a meeting between them would have played out.

From past jobs, projects and reading I knew a little about each woman but through this books I know feel I know much more about both them, and Norfolk during the late 1300s/ early 1400s.  I also want to find out more so this has to be a sign of just how good I found the book!