Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Short Life (Hardback)

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

'Harrison's psychological analysis is compelling. She locates many of Therese's ideas in the early death or her mother and the mental illness of her father...Harrison's account of the saint's childhood is well written, sympathetic and horrifying...[a] beautifully crafted book.' -- Damien Thompson LITERARY REVIEW (November) 'Kathryn Harrison has written a biography which is neither hagiography nor hatchet-job. In her reading St Therese is a damaged soul, but almost because of that, a truly great one.' -- Caroline Moore SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (9.11.03) '...fascinating...the writing is powerful and will cause reflection.' -- Talitha Stevenson OBSERVER (30.11.03) 'Harrison knows her stuff and writes so well that the reader soaks it up.' -- Christopher Howse TELEGRAPH (29.11.03) 'Harrison offers a critical perspective of Therese, but whether praising or blaming, her style is always luxuriously poetic. Written with a passion that pervades the prose, this is a grippingly good read.' -- Anita Sethi CITY LIFE (Manchester, 19.11.03) 'insightful.' -- Bess Twiston Davies CATHOLIC HERALD (5.12.03) 'The account Harrison gives of the little nun's heroic and uncomplaining final journey cannoy fail to touch the heart.' THE UNIVERSE (7.12.03) 'The excellence of Kathryn Harrison's short book is that it is an honest and rigorous account.' -- Roz Kaveney TIME OUT (17.12.03) 'This is no holy, holy book. It's different from anything you've ever read before about the little French nun who became a Doctor of the Church. She would have loved it.' IRISH NEWS (Belfast, 19.12.03) '[an] utterly fascinating read.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1.1.04) 'Kathryn Harrison's thoughtful, succinct and elegant study...helps us make new sense of Therese by stressing how her life was a story first of all told by her parents about their imagined object, and then with herself as dynamic subject.' -- Michele Roberts NEW STATESMAN (12.1.04) 'a comprehensive version of the saint's life...well-written account in a handy size.' -- Tom Horwood CATHOLIC TIMES (18.1.04) 'There is so much to say...that a new biography...has plenty of interest for devotees..Kathryn Harrison gives us a tougher portrait than most, stressing the courage, originality and heroism of her subject.' -- Isabel Quigly TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (6.2.04) 'To my mind, and from the point of view of non-specialised readers, this is the most interesting biography since Virginia Sackville West's 'The Eage and the Dove', first published in 1943.' NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST (3.4.04) 'Kathryn Harrison's Saint Therese of Lisieux offers a biographical map that traces the life of Therese and her spiritual journey.' -- Martin Warner CHURCH TIMES (14.5.04)

UK Kirkus review

Saints are, by definition, extraordinary people. Perhaps that's partly why it's so hard to identify with the 'quaint and awkward and solemn' child who became Saint Therese of Lisieux. Kathryn Harrison is a thoughtful and sympathetic guide to Therese Martin's progress from her devout, late nineteenth century French provincial bourgeois home to her entry into the Carmel of Lisieux at the age of fifteen and her death from tuberculosis aged only twenty-four. Harrison pays scrupulous attention to the effect the early death of her mother and the entry into a convent of her two adored older sisters had on Therese's spiritual journey. And she is alert to the paradoxes and limitations of a personality so focused on preparing for Heaven that even on her deathbed Therese worries that her enjoyment of the scent of violets may be a sin. The extremes of sainthood make for uncomfortable reading. Saint Therese of Lisieux is a title in the Weidenfeld and Nicolson Lives series, which includes biographies of famous women and men from Dante to Elvis Presley. (Kirkus UK)