The Company of Women - by Mary Gordon (Paperback)

About the Book

This is the story of five women who've become close friends because of their common devotion to a dynamic priest whose special vocation is working women. Although three of them are widowed, only one, Charlotte, has a child, Felicitas, around whom all their hopes are centered-- including those of Father Cyprian, for whom she's a kind of spiritual prodigy.

Book Synopsis

Mary Gordon's fiction explores the nature of love of religion, of family relationships and, in every sense, illuminates and enhances our lives.

Raised by five intensely religious women and a charismatic, controversial priest, sheltered from the secular world, Felicitas Maria Taylor is intelligent, charming, and desperate for a taste of ordinary happiness. More freedom than she has ever imagined awaits her at Columbia University in the 1960s. There, Felicitas falls in love with the worst man for her--with shattering results. Now she must turn again to the company of the women who love her, as she struggles to embrace the future without betraying the past.

Praise for The Company of Women

"A superb, stunningly written novel."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Rich . . . satisfying . . . a work of vast intelligence and enormous charm."--Newsday

About the Author

Mary Gordon is the author of seven novels, including Final Payments, Pearl, and The Love of My Youth; six works of nonfiction, including the memoirs The Shadow Man and Circling My Mother; and three collections of fic­tion, including The Stories of Mary Gordon, which was awarded the Story Prize. She has received many other honors, includ­ing a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.