Book Review – For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie

About the Book

In the year of 1413, two women meet for the first time in the city of Norwich.

Margery has left her fourteen children and husband behind to make her journey. Her visions of Christ – which have long alienated her from her family and neighbours, and incurred her husband’s abuse – have placed her in danger with the men of the Church, who have begun to hound her as a heretic.

Julian, an anchoress, has not left Norwich, nor the cell to which she has been confined, for twenty-­three years. She has told no one of her own visions – and knows that time is running out for her to do so.

The two women have stories to tell one another. Stories about girlhood, motherhood, sickness, loss, doubt and belief; revelations more powerful than the world is ready to hear. Their meeting will change everything.

Format: ebook (167 pages) Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publication date: 19th January 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2024.

The book tells the story of two 15th century female mystics – Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe – alternating frequently between the perspectives of the two women. Both names were vaguely familiar to me but I knew pretty much nothing about their lives or their writings. I’m not sure if that was a help or a hindrance. On the one hand it meant I came to the book with no preconceptions but, on the other hand, it made it difficult for me to assess how much of the story was the product of the author’s imagination. Not having much interest in religious doctrine or a belief in visions, I appreciated the book more for the insight it gave into the lives of medieval women than anything else.

I found myself particuarly drawn to Julian’s story. I felt the author really managed to convey in a believable way Julian’s profound religious conviction and suggest credible reasons for her decision to seek a contemplative life. The detail about the life of an anchoress and the process of becoming one was absolutely fascinating and I liked the way the author brought out Julian’s feelings of isolation and her struggles with the daily realities of confinement. ‘I could take ten paces in one direction, turn and take six paces, turn and take eight paces, turn and take six paces. Ten. Six. Eight. Six. Ten. Six. Eight. Six. Ten. Six. Eight. Six.’

Who can say whether Margery’s visions were real – she obviously believed them to be – or the result of some sort of mental disorder, possibly post-natal depression. I found the rigour of her self-imposed regime disturbing. However, the fact she continued to share her visions in the face of suspicion, anger and ridicule, as well as accusations of heresy, speaks to the strength of her conviction. The Margery of the book is a woman of passion in all senses of the word, someone prepared to defy the constraints imposed on her on account of her sex. Apart from anything else, the fact she gave birth to fourteen children suggests remarkable resilience.

The meeting between the two women mentioned in the first sentence of the blurb only features at the very end of the book and is rather fleeting. This made the book feel slightly unbalanced. It also didn’t seem that consequential, just a sharing of their similar experiences.

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain is a fascinating book and taught me a lot of things I didn’t know such as the fact that The Book of Margery Kempe is the first autobiography written in English by a man or woman and Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich is the earliest surviving book in English written by a woman. Its simple prose made it very readable but it didn’t completely enthrall me.

In three words: Intimate, introspective, meditative
Try something similar: The Book of Days by Francesca Kay

About the Author

Victoria MacKenzie is a fiction writer and poet. She has won a number of writing prizes, including a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award, and has been awarded writing residencies in Scotland, Finland and Australia. For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain won the Saltire First Book Award and was a Book of the Year in the Guardian, Sunday Times, Scotsman and Irish Times. (Photo: Author website)

Connect with Victoria
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