![]() ![]() Margaret laughing the first time Joan knocks a bully to the ground with a single punch. Michael appears stamped into the dessert that gives Joan her first taste of cinnamon. Her encounters with saints do not take the form of mystical visions or spiritual instruction. And when she goes to war for the Dauphin, she is unstoppable on the battlefield. She bests a knight after six days of training with a sword. She becomes an expert with a longbow the moment she releases her first arrow. She’s a savant, and her genius is for violence. Making her real requires imagination and empathy, and Chen brings both to the task of putting solid flesh on the charred bones of a legendary figure. ![]() Jeanne d’Arc became a symbol, rather than a person, the moment she joined the court in exile of the Dauphin, the outcast prince who would become Charles VII, King of France. The author of Mary B (2018) eschews hagiography in this very human portrait of Joan of Arc. ![]()
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