Book review: The Child Goddess

by Louise Marley. Ace Books, 2004. 324 p.

Jesus saith unto her, “Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?”
(John 20:15)

Mother Isabel Burke is a Magdalene Enquirer, several centuries hence. Just as their patron saint sought after the risen Christ, the Order of Mary Magdalene is dedicated to seeking out hidden truths and shedding light in dark places. While the Vatican has permitted the ordination of female priests, many Catholics are unhappy with the idea, and so the fledgling order is eager to prove its worth.

Isabel is called upon to use her training as an anthropologist to solve a mystery on the planet of Virimund. The ExtraSolar Corporation, attempting to exploit the supposedly uninhabited planet’s resources, has stumbled upon a small group of children. A brief and violent encounter has left several people dead. In the aftermath of the clash, ESC employees have brought back a native, a little girl named Oa.

Isabel struggles through a tangle of predatory corporate and scientific interests so that she can protect and honour the girl as a human being made in the image of God. (Some of these issues will look familiar to students of the history of missions and colonialism.) At the same time, she begins to realize that there is something very unusual about Oa. To complicate matters further, Isabel must work with Simon Edwards, a medical scientist with whom she has a complex personal history.

The main appeal of The Child Goddess does not lay in its scientific ideas. Marley gives hints that allow the astute reader to unravel most of Virimund’s mystery long before Isabel and Simon. The book’s chief strength is its characters: a desperate executive, a fame-hungry scientist, a quiet longshoreman, a girl burdened with secret shame. I felt the tension and anguish between Isabel, Simon, and Simon’s wife, Anna, was conveyed especially well.

The religious elements are powerful but subtle. Isabel strives to seek, to understand while also valuing and protecting, to be a Christian humanist in a world that belittles the value of both religion and humanity. She also strives to remain faithful to her vow of celibacy, to devote herself to God. In Isabel’s time, the Church has accepted as authentic the ancient Gospel of Mary, and Marley hints at other shifts within Christianity. But Isabel is no Gnostic; in all essentials she is an orthodox Christian, devoted to Christ and to her church. Mary of Magdala is important to her, not because she represents the divine feminine, but because Mary was the first to see and proclaim the risen Christ, His first apostle.

The story also explores Oa’s spiritual life. Her spirituality centres on Raimu-ke, an enigmatic ancestor goddess. Through this and other elements of the story, Marley develops interesting insights into the nature of religious devotion, shame, self-sacrifice, exclusion, and martyrdom.

3.5 out of 5