Kissing the Virgin's Mouth: A Novel - Hardcover

Gershten, Donna M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060185678 ISBN 13: 9780060185671

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

Synopsis

A young Mexican woman, Guadalupe Magdalena Molina Vßsquez rises from poverty to prominence in America, maintaining her humor and independence along the way. A first novel. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

?Lively and pungent?[Gershten] makes Magdalena a rich and contradictory character?and, moreover, a canny storyteller in her own right.?Los Angeles Times ?Captivating?full of passion and courage?a work of insight and imagination, as well as narrative strength and seductive language.?Washington Post Book World

"Lively and pungent.[Gershten] makes Magdalena a rich and contradictory character-and, moreover, a canny storyteller in her own right." -- Los Angeles Times

"Captivating.full of passion and courage.a work of insight and imagination, as well as narrative strength and seductive language." -- Washington Post Book World

"Captivating...full of passion and courage...a work of insight and imagination, as well as narrative strength and seductive language."--Washington Post Book World

"Lively and pungent...[Gershten] makes Magdalena a rich and contradictory character--and, moreover, a canny storyteller in her own right."--Los Angeles Times

Lively and pungent [Gershten] makes Magdalena a rich and contradictory character and, moreover, a canny storyteller in her own right. --Los Angeles Times"

Captivating full of passion and courage a work of insight and imagination, as well as narrative strength and seductive language. --Washington Post Book World"

From the Back Cover:

WINNER OF THE BELLWETHER PRIZE FOR FICTION

Kissing the Virgin's Mouth is the fictional memoir of Guadalupe Magdalena Molina V squez - wife, scoundrel, courtesan and mother. In a world where gender and class roles are rigid and religion predominant, Magda refuses to be a victim. She creates a philosophy of life that she can thrive in, a religion of cynical optimism, pragmatism, and determined gratitude. Seemingly invincible yet always fallible, Magda climbs from wide-eyed childhood to worldly courtesan life, from youth to the early onset of blindness in middle age.

In the Golden Zone of Teatl n, Sinaloa, Mexico, where tourists and wealthy Mexicans thrive and where poor Mexicans come only to work or visit the shrine of the miracle baby Jesus, Guadalupe performs her daily ritual. In the chair of her beloved T¡a Chucha mortared to the roof of her Golden Zone home, Magda shaves her long legs, tells her life stories and thrusts her fierce prayers of gratitude toward the Sea of Cort‚s. She recounts her life strategies - seasoned with an earthy, hard-earned wisdom - so that she might pass them along to her half-American daughter, Martina, and to her young Mexican cousin, Isabel.

This is a novel about love, the power of sex and the struggles of women. It is about the secrets of survival. It is about what a woman can do.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060185678
• ISBN 13: 9780060185671
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240