"The outstanding feature for me of this wonderfully constructed account of the life of Maria Goretti, is its depiction of poverty through the stories of both Maria and her mother; and how such poverty shapes the lives of women, in particular, because of the power that men can wield when such economic dependency prevails. Without ever spelling this out, La Tourette slowly and eloquently builds her narrative of hardship, so that when the inevitable assault on Maria occurs, we are left in no doubt about why she was subjected to it... The remarkable achievement of this book is not that it challenges the dramatic Catholic myth of Maria Goretti, but that it renders it irrelevant, compared with an ordinary life well-lived, however short." Anne Ashworth wrote.
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