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The Company of Women
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.
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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409 people want to read
About the author
Mary Gordon
103 books159 followersMary Catherine Gordon is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
June 3, 2016
MARY GORDON IS A BIG FAT PHONY
Nothing is more depressing than reading the New York Times Book Review. It’s just so smug, so orthodox. And at the same time so phony. Take Mary Gordon, for example. Just the other day Mary Gordon wrote a front page review praising the new novel by Louise Erdrich, the famous Native American author. Now I’ve got nothing against Louise Erdrich, but I’ve been reading the novels and essays of Mary Gordon for over thirty years. And by the time I finished reading the review, I just wanted to throw up.
Right off the bat, Mary Gordon takes a tough-guy stance, bragging about how back in the day feminists stuck together, how they shook up the world, writing classic novels that totally changed the rules about who could and couldn’t write American literature. Never before the Eighties and Nineties were there books by and about women of color. Never before were there stories written in American celebrating the courage and resilience of blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Koreans, Croatians, Martians, whatever. And these days it’s all over, thanks to the ubiquitous (but nameless) male pigs that put down “feminism” and “identity politics.” But Louise Erdrich is still around, and she’s the greatest.
It’s all about the sisterhood, see. It’s all about sticking together. Mary Gordon talks it up beautifully, just like William Holden in The Wild Bunch. “When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can’t do that, you’re like . . . some animal! You’re finished! We’re finished!”
It’s all very noble and inspiring. Who can resist (and who would dare question) Mary Gordon’s reverence for minority women, her touching loyalty to the ideals of sisterhood? Except that if you actually know who this woman is, if you’ve ever read her novels and essays and absorbed the real ugliness of her world view, the whole thing is just one big crock, a con job of monumental proportions. Watch Mary Gordon on YouTube, holding forth at some tedious Barnard function in Manhattan. In old age she’s decided to promote herself as a “Sixties Chick.” Clearly that goes over well with the aging white female alums who cough up donations to keep the ultra-exclusive private school afloat.
But in reality, Mary Gordon never really was a Sixties chick, any more than George Wallace was ever a Freedom Rider or Donald Trump was ever a Marine rifleman in Vietnam. Read her first two novels, Final Payments
and The Company of Women
and you see where Mary Gordon is really coming from.
Funnily enough, the most evil woman in Final Payments is a romance reader. Yes, I took it personally.
This is a woman who grew up Irish Catholic in Queens, at a time when Jewish kids passing through were routinely beaten and roughed up, and when any blacks of any age who tried to enter the Forbidden Zone would probably have been shot on sight by the police. The innocent, secluded, Irish Catholic world that Mary Gordon celebrates in her early novels is a world that was only made possible by systematic racial violence on a massive scale going back nearly a hundred years to the Draft Riots of 1863. But who cares! What counts is sisterhood!
Only those early novels of Mary Gordon’s don’t really celebrate sisterhood. Or brotherhood. Or the Sixties. The prim, Irish Catholic heroine pays lip service to Civil Rights -- but she never has any black friends. She opposes the Vietnam War -- but only to hammer home how superior she is to the neighborhood boys who do the real fighting and dying.
Worst of all, in a Mary Gordon novel the Prim Irish Heroine is always recoiling in disgust from noisy black kids dribbling basketballs, or loudmouthed black women arguing about sex, or coarse campus radicals bragging about wanting to be born Third World. The great symbol of shabbiness in The Company of Women is the poster of Jimi Hendrix in the squalid hippy crash pad that keeps falling down, over and over, no matter how often the long suffering heroine tapes it up again.
Evidently to a prim Irish Catholic girl who reveres Jane Austen, Jimi Hendrix is not a visionary musician, nor an artist, nor even a human being, but merely an ape making monkey sounds in the jungle.
But this is the woman believes in sisterhood. This is the tough, old-school feminist who loves Toni Morrison and Louise Erdrich. So it’s okay!
Think I’m reading too much into this? Think I’m working myself into a snit for nothing? Check out Mary Gordon’s truly astonishing biography of Joan of Arc.
Did you know that Joan of Arc never menstruated?
I don't know how Mary Gordon does her research, but she seems to think that's terribly important. She also volunteers the opinion (rendered in a delightfully dismissive way) that Joan was a truly worldwide figure of transcendent importance while Abraham Lincoln (a real lowlife who could not stop menstruating) was merely a “local god.”
Stop and think about that for a minute.
Joan of Arc matters to the whole world because she saved something truly eternal and important, like French civilization. Abraham Lincoln doesn’t really matter at all, because . . . well, presumably because the people he saved weren’t truly civilized. Maybe they weren’t truly human either. Maybe they would have been better off as slaves!
Oh, but Mary Gordon loves her colored sisters!
Mary Gordon reveres women who tell the stories of the forgotten, like Toni Morrison and Louise Erdrich. But check out her new review and you see how much that’s worth. Evidently in her newest novel Louise Erdrich tells the story of a Native American priest who falls for a female parishioner, but realizes their love can never be. Mary Gordon quotes the priest as saying something like, “you want her, but you can never have her. Suck it up and deal.” Seems authentic to me, but Gordon insists this moment is “beneath the author’s talent.” Why? Presumably because if you’re an Irish Catholic who grew up around real priests in a real Catholic neighborhood, you know (or must try to believe) that the priests never overcome desire . . . because they can’t feel desire in the first place!
I won’t even ask what the cost is when loyal Catholics cover for priests who aren’t really above desire.
Instead I’ll just wrap up with the point that Mary Gordon respects Louise Erdrich a whole lot . . . until Erdrich tells a truth she doesn’t want to hear. Then big, bad Mary Gordon covers her ears with her hands and starts going “la la la la la!” Just like on the playground.
Because that’s what sisters do.
December 2, 2023
I almost cast this aside after the first section; I felt so angry, not so much on my own generation's behalf, but on that of my mother and aunts and many wonderful nuns I knew who were so stifled and oppressed in the authoritarian Church prior to Vatican II. (Of course, it's not over yet, folks.) But I stopped, took a breath, and thought about what I had read. The seeds are there in the first part for these marvelous women to flourish, each according to her own personality and gifts. Father Cyprian's feet of clay are being exposed even in the face of the passive devotion and loyalty of the women. I'm glad I stuck with it. The relationships of the women to each other and to Cyprian are beautifully explored over a many years. It's never dull, and I came to admire all of them (except for Muriel, but she has her own sad and empty role to play.
April 26, 2024
SPOILER ALERT: This 1980 novel tells the story of Felicitas Taylor, whose widowed mother is among a group of New York City five women in the thrall of a conversative Roman Catholic priest named Father Cyprian. The women, all single or widowed, form the company of women who raise the young girl. Overseeing them is Cyprian, who left his order following the Vatican II liberalization and eventually retreats to the rural town in upstate New York where he was born and raised. The story opens in 1963, when Felicitas is fourteen, and depicts her importance to the women and man who surround her: She is their last best hope, Cyprian tells them. Felicitas is smart, perhaps even gifted, but socially isolated from people her own age and the mainstream of American life. She spends her summers at the priest's compound, and although she knows the kids at her school in the outer borough where she lives, they don't interact, and she has no friends. The story then shifts to 1969, and Felicitas is attending a small Catholic college, majoring in classics and reading Latin and Greek. Her relationship with Cyprian is tense because she speaks her mind and has turned against the Vietnam war, which he supports. She is so anti-war that she secretly attends a march on the Pentagon. However, not long after, the classics program at her college is curtailed, and she decides -- against the wishes of all of the adults involved in her life -- to transfer to Columbia. At Columbia, Felicitas falls under the spell of a political science professor named Robert, a shallow man who spouts all the radical bullshit of the day, and quickly becomes his lover and soon after moves into the apartment he shares with two women who were also once his lovers. The love affair soon falters because of Felictas' obsession with her lover, who espouses free love and urges her to sleep with one of the louts who lives downstairs. Felicitas complies and not long after discovers she's pregnant. After scraping together the money for an abortion -- which was illegal at the time -- she runs out of the clinic at the last moment and goes home to her mother. The story then shifts to 1977. Felicitas and her daughter are living in a house her mother built in Cyprian's compound in upstate New York. All the other women have also moved upstate, and they've now formed a new company of women to raise Felicitas' daughter, Linda. Cyprian is dying of heart failure, and Felicitas is about to marry a nice local man -- silent and wise but not smart, she says -- who can be a father to her child.
This is a dreary book, despite the pot-boiling plot. Felicitas is an unbelievable and unsatisfying character. As a devout Roman Catholic woman in 1969, she should have some misgivings -- some thought, at minimum -- about going to bed with the divorced Robert. Not a word. As a devout Roman Catholic woman in 1969, she should have severe misgivings about seeking an abortion. Not a word. As a highly-intelligent woman in 1969, she should notice that she's left a patriarchal circle she found tyrannical and immediately joined another, albeit one that was not celibate. No notice mentioned. As an anti-war young American in 1969, she should have continued to at least note, and perhaps even protest, the continuing war. Not a word. As an American woman living through the upheaval of the second wave of feminism, she should make some connections. Not even mentioned. While I can believe that there were women who were as sheltered as Felicitas is supposed to have been -- even women growing up in New York City among single and widowed women who have worked for their livings for decades -- I find it not believable that a highly intelligent woman attending one of the finest universities on the planet, one that was in turmoil -- on strike! takeovers of administration offices! -- would have failed to notice. For all of those reasons, I found Felicitas unbelievable as a character. And after reading this book, I have serious doubts that this author's work actually deserves her reputation as a thoughtful and accomplished writer. In fact, I find myself very turned off by her and am unlikely to ever read anything else by her. Mary Gordon is well-known as Roman Catholic writer, and it is an insult to Roman Catholic women who struggled with sexuality and choice in those times to pretend that those conflicts didn't exist.
This is a dreary book, despite the pot-boiling plot. Felicitas is an unbelievable and unsatisfying character. As a devout Roman Catholic woman in 1969, she should have some misgivings -- some thought, at minimum -- about going to bed with the divorced Robert. Not a word. As a devout Roman Catholic woman in 1969, she should have severe misgivings about seeking an abortion. Not a word. As a highly-intelligent woman in 1969, she should notice that she's left a patriarchal circle she found tyrannical and immediately joined another, albeit one that was not celibate. No notice mentioned. As an anti-war young American in 1969, she should have continued to at least note, and perhaps even protest, the continuing war. Not a word. As an American woman living through the upheaval of the second wave of feminism, she should make some connections. Not even mentioned. While I can believe that there were women who were as sheltered as Felicitas is supposed to have been -- even women growing up in New York City among single and widowed women who have worked for their livings for decades -- I find it not believable that a highly intelligent woman attending one of the finest universities on the planet, one that was in turmoil -- on strike! takeovers of administration offices! -- would have failed to notice. For all of those reasons, I found Felicitas unbelievable as a character. And after reading this book, I have serious doubts that this author's work actually deserves her reputation as a thoughtful and accomplished writer. In fact, I find myself very turned off by her and am unlikely to ever read anything else by her. Mary Gordon is well-known as Roman Catholic writer, and it is an insult to Roman Catholic women who struggled with sexuality and choice in those times to pretend that those conflicts didn't exist.
July 26, 2017
Unrealistic, melodramatic junk. I only finished as a kind of penance. This was written 37 years ago by a "Catholic" writer. She was apparently wildly popular in 70-80's. She's written many many novels. Perhaps this was a particularly bad one? My favorite used book sale is at a nearby Catholic church, and that's where I picked this up. There was a Mary Cassatt picture on the cover, and I'm quite sure that's what attracted me to this gem.
I read reviews that painted this author as a racist and anti-feminist. I don't like to ascribe characers beliefs to the author. Other than references to the high crime rate in NYC in the 1970's (true dat), I saw nothing that could be stretched into racism. I parts of the novel set in the 1950 (I think) educated Irish folks speak poorly of their lesser cousins -- which to me, rang true to form, and not as the author being racist.
Was it a "Catholic" story? Not to me (but I'm not Catholic, and not religious at all). I thought religion was treated very superficially, even though the main characters were mostly practising Catholics. One of the main characters was a renegade priest who left his order because they were dopting modern ways and weren't conservative enough. I tried to keep track of how many times the word 'rage' was used relative to this character, but I lost count. He even got so angry once he gave himself a heart attack.
Felicitas is the main characer. An only child raised by her widowed mom and her spinster friends, and the angry priest. Felicitas shown to be brilliant, rational, and good at logic and argument, and is basically the great white hope of all these old folks. She essentially never has contact with kids her own age.
Virgin Felicitas enters Columbia university, and within days (DAYS!!) has begun an affair with one of her professors. She takes to alcohol and drugs like a pro, with no hesitation or contemplation. Within a semester - you guessed it - she's pregnant. She goes for an abortion, but chicken's out -- not for religious or moral reasons, no thought or contemplation for the moral implications at all -- but flees because she fears her own death from the procedure. Never once does she consider her religious beliefs, her baby, the baby's father - its just a totally self interested act from beginning to end.
She drops out of school and returns to live with the spinsters and priest. She becomes a stay at home mom who eventually learns to love her child. She spends her days caring for the old people, and caring for her daughter. She's on track to take over the small town librarian job when the current holder retires.
This was horrible dreck. If you are an observant Catholic, I don't think this book has anything to offer. If you aren't, this book has nothing to offer.
I read reviews that painted this author as a racist and anti-feminist. I don't like to ascribe characers beliefs to the author. Other than references to the high crime rate in NYC in the 1970's (true dat), I saw nothing that could be stretched into racism. I parts of the novel set in the 1950 (I think) educated Irish folks speak poorly of their lesser cousins -- which to me, rang true to form, and not as the author being racist.
Was it a "Catholic" story? Not to me (but I'm not Catholic, and not religious at all). I thought religion was treated very superficially, even though the main characters were mostly practising Catholics. One of the main characters was a renegade priest who left his order because they were dopting modern ways and weren't conservative enough. I tried to keep track of how many times the word 'rage' was used relative to this character, but I lost count. He even got so angry once he gave himself a heart attack.
Felicitas is the main characer. An only child raised by her widowed mom and her spinster friends, and the angry priest. Felicitas shown to be brilliant, rational, and good at logic and argument, and is basically the great white hope of all these old folks. She essentially never has contact with kids her own age.
Virgin Felicitas enters Columbia university, and within days (DAYS!!) has begun an affair with one of her professors. She takes to alcohol and drugs like a pro, with no hesitation or contemplation. Within a semester - you guessed it - she's pregnant. She goes for an abortion, but chicken's out -- not for religious or moral reasons, no thought or contemplation for the moral implications at all -- but flees because she fears her own death from the procedure. Never once does she consider her religious beliefs, her baby, the baby's father - its just a totally self interested act from beginning to end.
She drops out of school and returns to live with the spinsters and priest. She becomes a stay at home mom who eventually learns to love her child. She spends her days caring for the old people, and caring for her daughter. She's on track to take over the small town librarian job when the current holder retires.
This was horrible dreck. If you are an observant Catholic, I don't think this book has anything to offer. If you aren't, this book has nothing to offer.
September 18, 2013
Hmm. What can I say about this one. First off, I am not a catholic, so some of this was kind of lost on me. I found this book unusual. There is Father Cyprian with out a congregation. This makes him somewhat of a failure in my book, but he has a following of women who come to see him once a year. Seems weird to me. One of the women has a daughter, Felicitas. Felicitas goes away to college and begins doing all kinds of unspeakable things and loses her way. She gets pregnant, comes home and then her and her mother leave and go to live near the priest and raise the baby. In the end Felicitas gets married to an average kind of guy from the hardware store. He is a “simple” but a good person. There is also Muriel who lives next door to Father Cyprian and she is in love with him. The book is a portrayal of life in the 1960s and 70s.
I found this book a little too weird and dysfunctional for my taste. I am not sure what the writer was trying to get across to the reader? I found no one in the story that I could connect with. If you read this and like it let me know maybe you can explain it to me? I give this book 2/5 stars.
I found this book a little too weird and dysfunctional for my taste. I am not sure what the writer was trying to get across to the reader? I found no one in the story that I could connect with. If you read this and like it let me know maybe you can explain it to me? I give this book 2/5 stars.
January 17, 2011
Having recently re-read (and liked very much) Mary Gordon’s Final Payments I decided to track down her next book, published a few later in 1980. Set in three separate time periods between 1963 and 1977, the book’s protagonist is a young girl named Felicitas who is being raised by her widowed mother, and her mother’s close-knit circle of friends, all of whom are feverishly devoted to an archly conservative priest whose dictatorial influence on them all verges on despotism. A father figure to Felicitas he represents everything about the rigidly paternalistic and authoritarian Catholic church that I have always rebelled against. Equally unsettling is the company of women whose willingness blindly to go along with whatever Fr. Cyprian says is a sickening reminder that women, even now, have let themselves be spiritually, emotionally and physically dependent on the smug decrees of a male-dominated church. Anyone who has not grown up in the Catholic church of the late 50’s and early 60’s will probably find little to resonate with in this book. But for the rest of us, there’s much here that will be familiar to us. Perhaps for those of us who left the church that Cyprian represents, the following passage comes a little too close for comfort: “It is so easy for men with the mind Cyprian has to make a woman look foolish… my mind is better, more complicated, more responsible than his, but he can in a minute, make it look childish and uninformed…so I will not accept the blandishments of the religious life; I will not look to God for comfort, or for succor, or for sweetness. God will have to meet me on the high ground of reason, and there He’s a poor contender.”
July 15, 2009
Intersting topic, but so hard to get through. It felt all over the place and so slow to start. It thought the second part was good, but the end left me disappointed. It might have been better for someone who was raised a Catholic in the time period the book takes place... 1950's/ 1960's. I had a hard time relating to it.
May 3, 2011
Five women's attachment to a Catholic priest. Must be the wrong book at the wrong time for me because I couldn't finish it.
March 17, 2017
I love Mary Gordon. For me, her writing casts a spell. Plus she's also got that whole "What does it mean to be a Catholic woman" thing going on. Decades after Vatican II, that might not be as interesting as it once was, but I find it fascinating. Here, she duels with Catholicism in yet another way, landing one sharp blow after another through the stories of a group of women who never married for one reason or another, and most of whom remain faithful to the church. I'm still not sure how she managed it but in spite of practically excoriating the church through the characters of some of the priests, Gordon winds up conveying a real affinity for Catholicism, the kind of affection you feel toward friends you've known all your life and love in an abiding way almost because you know their flaws.
What probably resonates with most readers is the story of these women's lives, most notably the main character, Felicitas. The chapters when she is in college I found the most riveting, and the abortion chapter -- Joyce Carol Oates wishes she could have written something so well.
When I finished this book, I broke down and wept. That's how good a writer Mary Gordon is. I wish I could write 1/10 as well as she does.
What probably resonates with most readers is the story of these women's lives, most notably the main character, Felicitas. The chapters when she is in college I found the most riveting, and the abortion chapter -- Joyce Carol Oates wishes she could have written something so well.
When I finished this book, I broke down and wept. That's how good a writer Mary Gordon is. I wish I could write 1/10 as well as she does.
January 30, 2019
Once again, I have the Amateur Gourmet to thank for this book. He had recommended Wendy Wasserstein's collection of essays and she mentioned Mary Gordon in one of them. What a wonderful writer! In this book she writes about devoutly Catholic women which are so foreign to me but I found them all interesting and a great commentary on the choices open to women during the 40s and 50s. It was heartbreaking to read of the daughter's choice and her subsequent circumscribed life when she could've had so much more. It was interesting that this happened during the late 60s. If her story had taken place 10 years later, she may have escaped the circle. However, Gordon does not make it clear that she was dissatisfied with the choice she made. I really appreciate that ambiguity.
April 15, 2010
What a boring book! I read it for a friend and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The writing is terrible. She uses the same phrases over and over again and I had a hard time keeping who the women were straight.
June 15, 2015
This was not my kind of book. I thought since the main character was born around the same time I was born and grew up in the 1960's I could relate. But not so much.
Also, my maiden name is Mary Gordon, I thought I could relate, But not so much.
Also, my maiden name is Mary Gordon, I thought I could relate, But not so much.
May 29, 2015
This was super weird.
January 20, 2023
I thrifted this book at my local thrift store I just looked at the cover and it looked interesting I had no clue it was about god, priests, etc. I am not a person that is into that stuff at all. (don't believe in god) but I got into and really enjoyed learning about someone's perspective in that realm.
I can say I very much like Felicitas, cyprian not very much at all but I did grow to like him more at the end where he gives his perspective.
I hate Robert.
I also love how real this felt and how she did go through a lot of tough battles with herself but after all, she ended up with the people she loves.
I feel bad for Muriel I don't understand her at all she is just there in the background.
Elizabeth has a very good perspective I feel like I would most likely be her in this book along with claire.
Linda changed it all with love.
I can say I very much like Felicitas, cyprian not very much at all but I did grow to like him more at the end where he gives his perspective.
I hate Robert.
I also love how real this felt and how she did go through a lot of tough battles with herself but after all, she ended up with the people she loves.
I feel bad for Muriel I don't understand her at all she is just there in the background.
Elizabeth has a very good perspective I feel like I would most likely be her in this book along with claire.
Linda changed it all with love.
August 21, 2025
"Trataba de cambiar miradas con las ancianas, las dementes que ocultaban el pelo bajo sombreros porque no podían soportar tocárselo. Veía sus piernas, vencidas y atormentadas, los pies calzados con zapatos de alguien muerto antes que ellas, veía sus pertenencias en bolsas de papel, sus casa, sus bienes, material plástico, tela destrozada. Con todo conservaban el instinto de guardar. Era lo último que perdían las mujeres. Vagaban, pero no vagaban libres de toda carga. Desesperados, los hombres que conformaban la contrapartida de ellas partían con un poco de whisky y con lo puesto. Pero las mujeres recolectaban, se aferraban. Vagaban porque algún hombre había perdido todo interés. No eran las mujeres cuyos maridos les pegaban. Estas se habían arruinado a raíz del abandono."
May 7, 2020
Not an easy read, but fascinating look back at the lives of women in the 1960’s and 70’s and their relationship with a charismatic priest. Really enjoyed the last section of the book as it made some interesting thought provoking ideas on interactions and observations in life. Brought back a lot of memories of that time period, as I would have been same age as the main character.
July 14, 2020
Read this for my independent study. Not as great as Final Payments, but very good. Things of note:
- the women constructing their own houses/little commune
- Felicitas’ taking on of domestic duties at Robert’s apartment
- is fleshly desire bad here or just inevitable? Is Felicitas’ proposed marriage in the end a tragedy because it is passionless or right?
- the women constructing their own houses/little commune
- Felicitas’ taking on of domestic duties at Robert’s apartment
- is fleshly desire bad here or just inevitable? Is Felicitas’ proposed marriage in the end a tragedy because it is passionless or right?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2022
At first I was pretty bored with the story, I am not one to divulge into the catholic lifestyle and didn't feel like hearing Cyprian ramble. However once the story shifted to Felicitas point of view I was more interested in her side of the story. Small font, found a handful of spelling errors in the end. Wouldn't recommend.
August 31, 2019
I don't understand the super negative reviews, but I was raised Catholic and experienced many similar things as Felicitas, coming of age at the same time in history. I was fascinated by the highly intellectual writing, made human through the characters.
April 18, 2020
I love this book. When I first read it in my early twenties, it really resonated with me. I could completely relate to the main character. If you grew up in working class, ethnic, Catholic New York, you will enjoy this book.
October 12, 2020
Interesting blend of complex characters. who really came to life. Gave marvelous insight into the plight of single women. in that period of time who hae to rely on their own resources in order to stay alive. It draws the reader into every page.
November 1, 2023
Written in 1980, this novel focuses on the dramatic societal changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Gordon, Catholic, discusses themes of religious obedience, coming of age and the sexual revolution. The book resonated with my upbringing.
September 12, 2020
Some acute psychological and social insights in the narrative of the affair, but ultimately emotionally flat and somewhat unbelievable. 2.5 stars.
December 10, 2021
I don't know how anyone could comprehend or fully appreciate this book unless they were educated in Catholic schools before the 1960s. I'm going to stew over this one for a while.
June 15, 2022
So much life in it.
December 17, 2022
Mary Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, Gerard Manley Hopkins--all stunningly brilliant in their reflection of human struggle with God.
February 20, 2025
all the men in this book suck and i suppose that's why it's called the company of women
August 11, 2013
First published in 1980, this beautifully written novel by Mary Gordon is an empathetic and moving portrait of a group of women in thrall to a charismatic but conservative and despotic priest. The five women live in New York City and are close friends. All are either widowed or single, and only one of them, Charlotte, has a child. The narrative centres on this child, Felicitas, who is 14 when the story opens. She is an intelligent but socially awkward girl, out of step with modern America, and equally in thrall to Father Cyprian. She is also the focus of their attention and their hopes for the future.
But Felicitas has to forge her own path in life, which she does by choosing to reject a Catholic college education in favour of Columbia University, where she has to confront the liberalism and new attitudes of the 1960s, so at variance with her Catholic upbringing.
Gordon’s strength as a writer is in her characterisation. The five older women come alive as individuals with their distinct voices and their inner thoughts, and their relationship to Father Cyprian is totally believable. Felicitas’ relationship to him, and his to her, is also convincingly portrayed. These women are not fanatics, but for them the Catholic Church brings both solace and purpose in their often difficult lives. Felicitas’ initial rejection of the Church followed by her return to the women who have nurtured her when life doesn’t turn out as expected, is also deftly handled.
But it is perhaps Father Cyprian himself who stands out in the novel. He is a complex man, who has to leave his order when he is unable to accept post-Vatican II liberalisation and the subsequent increasing permissiveness within his beloved Church. He retreats to the rural town where he grew up, and his once thriving flock is reduced to the women who visit him every summer, and who later move permanently to his compound there. He’s autocratic and conservative, but capable of love and support, and always human in spite of his strict allegiance to the precepts of his faith.
This is very much a book about friendship and acceptance both within and beyond the Church. Gordon is less successful when talking about Columbia University where the people Felicitas meets are somewhat stereotypical, but she is on firm ground when talking about the group of women and overall this is an absorbing and thought-provoking read.
But Felicitas has to forge her own path in life, which she does by choosing to reject a Catholic college education in favour of Columbia University, where she has to confront the liberalism and new attitudes of the 1960s, so at variance with her Catholic upbringing.
Gordon’s strength as a writer is in her characterisation. The five older women come alive as individuals with their distinct voices and their inner thoughts, and their relationship to Father Cyprian is totally believable. Felicitas’ relationship to him, and his to her, is also convincingly portrayed. These women are not fanatics, but for them the Catholic Church brings both solace and purpose in their often difficult lives. Felicitas’ initial rejection of the Church followed by her return to the women who have nurtured her when life doesn’t turn out as expected, is also deftly handled.
But it is perhaps Father Cyprian himself who stands out in the novel. He is a complex man, who has to leave his order when he is unable to accept post-Vatican II liberalisation and the subsequent increasing permissiveness within his beloved Church. He retreats to the rural town where he grew up, and his once thriving flock is reduced to the women who visit him every summer, and who later move permanently to his compound there. He’s autocratic and conservative, but capable of love and support, and always human in spite of his strict allegiance to the precepts of his faith.
This is very much a book about friendship and acceptance both within and beyond the Church. Gordon is less successful when talking about Columbia University where the people Felicitas meets are somewhat stereotypical, but she is on firm ground when talking about the group of women and overall this is an absorbing and thought-provoking read.
March 22, 2016
Felicitas is an odd child. Her mother and her mother's friends -- a group of women and an aging priest -- like to think that Felicitas's oddness is the product of her extraordinary intelligence, not her sheltered and strange upbringing (in the company of women, and one extremely intense old man.)
When we meet Felicitas at college age, her obedience and all her training to be fierce and asexual have failed her, and Gordon provides us with an exquisitely acute portrait of the douchey guy Felicitas loves. The late sixties were even worse than the 2010s for finding political justifications for sexual cruelty. Poor Felicitas didn't even have Tinder to help her realize that the douchebag she fell for wasn't an original visionary in his rejection of monogamy and purported rejection of privilege.
The book's end feels abrupt, with a series of short chapters authored in the first person by each of the main characters who embody different types and give voice to particular philosophies and ideas about sin. This didn't read like Spending, though Felicitas could, with a few tweaks, grow up to be Monica (Spending's heroine.) Gordon's prose there had an assertive matter-of-factness. Here her prose read more like a less mellifluous Alice Munro, and a few times I was reminded of the novels of Alice McDermott, except that Gordon seems to have been consciously writing a novel of ideas. (Neither comparison is an insult, I love the Alices.) I enjoyed it more for its intermittent insights than its arc as a novel, but some of its little notions will probably haunt me for awhile. I appreciate being introduced to a lovely phrase from theology, the "scandal of the particular," and some lines from Auden --
"always, though truth and love
can never really differ, when they seem to,
the subaltern should be truth."
When we meet Felicitas at college age, her obedience and all her training to be fierce and asexual have failed her, and Gordon provides us with an exquisitely acute portrait of the douchey guy Felicitas loves. The late sixties were even worse than the 2010s for finding political justifications for sexual cruelty. Poor Felicitas didn't even have Tinder to help her realize that the douchebag she fell for wasn't an original visionary in his rejection of monogamy and purported rejection of privilege.
The book's end feels abrupt, with a series of short chapters authored in the first person by each of the main characters who embody different types and give voice to particular philosophies and ideas about sin. This didn't read like Spending, though Felicitas could, with a few tweaks, grow up to be Monica (Spending's heroine.) Gordon's prose there had an assertive matter-of-factness. Here her prose read more like a less mellifluous Alice Munro, and a few times I was reminded of the novels of Alice McDermott, except that Gordon seems to have been consciously writing a novel of ideas. (Neither comparison is an insult, I love the Alices.) I enjoyed it more for its intermittent insights than its arc as a novel, but some of its little notions will probably haunt me for awhile. I appreciate being introduced to a lovely phrase from theology, the "scandal of the particular," and some lines from Auden --
"always, though truth and love
can never really differ, when they seem to,
the subaltern should be truth."
February 9, 2014
The Company of Women by Mary Gordon
Read October 30th 2013
This is another one I found on my errant laptop.
There is an edge of bitterness on entering this story. It starts on a religious note and then evolves into a magical explanation of the relationships of a cluster of characters. The central character, at the beginning of the story is a teenager – a real voice. The narrative unfolds slowly and reluctantly. From the positive beginning, the entry of negative emotions is one of surprise. The relationships change and suddenly we have the flowering Felicitas when she falls in love with the ‘inappropriate’ man.
We continue reading with sadness and her ‘fall’ into all that is negative about the environment he lives in. Her inner struggles and the pretence. This is not easy for her, and the thread of sadness of a woman losing her daughter and the daughter growing away from her mother. This is a tale of old, as we all have to ‘grow up’ and leave parents and family. Beautiful metaphors accompany emotional phrases expressing the loss of each and every character. The book is divided into segments. The young Felicitas, the college student, the rebel, the change into womanhood and finally the mother. Don’t be fooled by this book. It is exhausting and worrisome but real.
I rate this book 4 stars
Thank you netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book
Read October 30th 2013
This is another one I found on my errant laptop.
There is an edge of bitterness on entering this story. It starts on a religious note and then evolves into a magical explanation of the relationships of a cluster of characters. The central character, at the beginning of the story is a teenager – a real voice. The narrative unfolds slowly and reluctantly. From the positive beginning, the entry of negative emotions is one of surprise. The relationships change and suddenly we have the flowering Felicitas when she falls in love with the ‘inappropriate’ man.
We continue reading with sadness and her ‘fall’ into all that is negative about the environment he lives in. Her inner struggles and the pretence. This is not easy for her, and the thread of sadness of a woman losing her daughter and the daughter growing away from her mother. This is a tale of old, as we all have to ‘grow up’ and leave parents and family. Beautiful metaphors accompany emotional phrases expressing the loss of each and every character. The book is divided into segments. The young Felicitas, the college student, the rebel, the change into womanhood and finally the mother. Don’t be fooled by this book. It is exhausting and worrisome but real.
I rate this book 4 stars
Thank you netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews