Author
The Book of Longings
In first-century Galilee, Ana is a wealthy, intellectually restless young woman determined to write the stories of women whose lives have been neglected or erased. Her ambitions conflict with a family intent on arranging a profitable marriage and with a society that grants women little authority over their work, bodies, or futures. After meeting Jesus of Nazareth, Ana becomes his wife and enters a household far poorer than the one she has known. Their marriage unfolds amid domestic strain, Roman occupation, political resistance, and Jesus’s developing spiritual vocation. Ana’s own path eventually carries her from Sepphoris and Nazareth to Alexandria and a community of Jewish contemplatives. By imagining a fictional wife for Jesus, Sue Monk Kidd shifts attention from familiar sacred history to the contested question of who is permitted to leave a record. The novel treats longing, writing, and female solidarity as forms of resistance against disappearance.