Our Lady of the Lost and Found - by Diane Schoemperlen (Paperback)

About the Book

On an otherwise typical Monday morning, a middle-aged writer enters her living room and finds a woman standing by her fig tree. She is the Virgin Mary--and after 2000 years of petition, adoration, and traveling, she's in need of a little R&R.

Book Synopsis

One Monday morning in April, a middle-aged writer walks into her living room to water the plants and finds a woman standing beside her potted fig tree. Dressed in a navy blue trench coat and white Nikes, the woman introduces herself as "Mary. Mother of God.... You know. Mary." Instead of a golden robe or a crown, she arrives bearing a practical wheeled suitcase. Weary after two thousand years of adoration and petition, Mary is looking for a little R & R. She's asked in for lunch, and decides to stay a week. As the story of their visit unfolds, so does the story of Mary-one of the most complex and powerful female figures of our time-and her changing image in culture, art, history, as well as the thousands of recorded sightings that have placed her everywhere from a privet hedge to the dented bumper of a Camaro.

As this Everywoman and Mary become friends, their conversations, both profound and intimate, touch upon Mary's significance and enduring relevance. Told with humor and grace, Our Lady of the Lost and Found is an absorbing tour through Mary's history and a thoughtful meditation on spirituality, our need for faith, and our desire to believe in something larger than ourselves.

Review Quotes

"A graceful novel...lovely, clever [and] imaginative." --The Wall Street Journal

"A clever hybrid of religious fairy tale and straight up spiritual inquest, this visitation of the blessed virgin is a holy hoot." --Elle

About the Author

Diane Schoemperlen is the author of Our Lady of the Lost and Found; In the Language of Love; and five short story collections, including Forms of Devotion, which won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1998; and The Man of My Dreams, which was nominated for a Governor General's Award and a Trillium Award.