The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

 This story brings a fictional wife of Jesus. It imagines what is possible rather what is believed. “It could also be argued that in the first-century Jewish world of Galilee, (...) marriage was a man’s civic, family, and sacred duty.” Jesus’s family would expect him to marry.

Sepphoris, 16 CE. Ana is fourteen-years-old. Her aunt Yaltha, who comes from Egypt to live with them, opens Ana’s eyes to a world she had no idea existed. Jewish girls and women in Alexandria, studying with philosophers, writing poetry, and owning houses. Ana by reading the Scriptures on her own discovers that there were also women there, not only men. In that moment, she knows she wants to be a chronicler of lost stories. And whatever her father allowed Ana in the past, a female, now needs to stop as she gets betrothed to a man and a man she doesn’t want to be with.

An encounter with an eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. “The longing of my heart was for a man I scarcely knew.”

When Ana makes home in Nazareth with Jesus and his family, she realizes that coming from a privileged life to a simple one, now she needs to learn how to perform everyday chores. And what she longs for is being able to write again.

As Jesus follows John the Immerser, his family questions his behavior, making it even harder on Ana, who had to stay behind. Once John is arrested and Jesus becomes “the new John,” this time Ana is allowed to follow him. But something happens and instead following Jesus, Ana needs to flee to Egypt with her aunt.

Most of the story is concentrated on Ana, before she gets married to Jesus and later once married, they are separated many times. What this story brings about Jesus is his very simple life and his very strong belief in a new prophet. And Ana who strongly believes in Jesus, but also craves to continue with her passion as “a student, an ink maker, a composer of words, a collector of forgotten stories…” Both characters are bold and yearn to follow their potential inside them. Since we already know the story of Jesus, I liked it and preferred it that the focus of the story is Ana.

I loved the message of longing, what it means to one and how powerful it can be.

I enjoyed Yaltha being a mentor to Ana, a young girl, who needed it, especially when her mother was cold and not approving of her writing. And through later years, when Ana marries and at times, life puts her through trials.

The time period shows how diverse and advanced Egypt was. I enjoyed very much the atmosphere of Egypt and the story of Yaltha being part of Therapeutae – a community of Jews, philosophers mostly, coming from educated and affluent families, but giving up their comforts to live simple lives dedicated to studying and writing. “It has its goodness, but also its hardships.”

The Jesus’s journey in this story is brief, but it is richly imagined, bringing a good sense of what struggles he goes through and still his positivity radiates, set against the brutal rule of Herod Antipas. One, who strives at all costs to be named King of the Jews by Rome.

Written engrossingly, you want to know what happens next to Ana and Jesus. With characters drawn so interestingly that you care even for Judas. You get the sense of place and time, and with two distinct places I liked the contrast of two places and two different approaches to women, and how diversity can propel advancement, instead of creating division.

Release date: 21 April 2020

Publisher: Viking