"Gracefully crosses the borders of plausibility into a luminous metaphysical realm."—Publishers Weekly
"A highly sexual, highly sensual spiritual realm...Passionate and unified at the same time."—Woodstock Times
The Goddess is returning! She takes shape in the hands of an Episcopal priest’s shy, retiring wife. She invades the dreams of a grande dame who thinks women priests are a scandal. She lures a poker-playing ex-convict onto unfamiliar terrain. Then there is the mysterious old man in the wood, who’s been watching, waiting for a sign of her return.
Who is the Goddess? Where has she been for so long? What does she want from the four human beings whose lives she is turning upside down and inside out?
As they confront these questions, Esther, Spencer, Marvin and Fergus find themselves drawn together, forging friendships across boundaries of age, class and race, discovering—and recovering—powerful, erotic passions. All their encounters, with themselves and each other, lead them deeper into Blackwood, an old estate that shelters an imperiled grove of trees sacred to the Goddess, a grove it becomes their mission to save.
"The Goddess is returning! She takes shape in the hands of an Episcopal priest's shy wife. She invades the dreams of a grande dame who finds women priests scandalous. She lures a poker-playing ex-convict onto unfamiliar terrain. Meanwhile, a mysterious old man in the wood waits for a sign of Her return. Who is the Goddess? Where has She been for so long? And what does She want from the four human beings whose lives she turns upside down? As Esther, Spencer, Marvin, and Fergus confront these questions, they forge friendships across boundaries of age, class, and race, meanwhile discovering-and recovering-powerful erotic passions. Their encounters lead them deeper into Blackwood, an old estate that shelters an imperiled grove of trees sacred to the Goddess, which becomes their mission to save. The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy marks Cunningham's first exploration of Christianity and the power of a divine feminine-forgotten, obscured, and suppressed by the Church-and takes the reader into the world of Cunningham's origins. Thirty-one years after its first publication, the book remains a classic in what has become a movement to reclaim the Goddess and embody Her return"--
