Mary Gordon

"Mary Gordon's luminous new fiction introduces three women, each of whom tells the story of the lover who altered her life." "In Immaculate Man, a social worker in her forties whose specialty is battered women becomes the lover of a priest. He has never desired a woman until, at forty-three, he desires her, makes love to her, uses his holy hands to touch her. She teaches Father Clement the language of the flesh; he teaches her the language of the...

"Unbeknownst to her many fans, Quin Archer, the revenge-loving queen of the reality-TV show "Payback," was once an angry teen named Heidi - and her true story may be known only to Agnes, who was her art teacher at a private New England girls' school in the 1970s. Then a young woman herself, Agnes saw a spark of originality in the brooding Heidi. But when she suggests Heidi visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the girl returns with a disastrous...