"... an amazing work" -- Cynthia Ozick
"Bodmin, 1349 is a masterful work. Language here is a powerful and highly original cognitive instrument, surpassing Eco's The Name of the Rose." -- Mario Materassi
Here is history with human faces in the characters of Will, a peasant from York, and his wife, Miriam, rumored to be Jewish, a "leftover" from the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, who becomes a picaresque heroine through whom the events for the Black Death on the continent are told. The novel is passionate and witty as it interweaves existing documents from the times, charters and chronicles, monastic life and town life, the rectory and the brothel, with fantasy, vision, and lyricism. It is a compelling work of the religious and historical imagination.