For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain

An astounding debut, both epic and intimate, about grief, trauma, revelation, and the hidden lives of women - by a major new talent

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 the powerful than the world is ready to hear. Their meeting will change everything.

Sensual, vivid and humane, For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain cracks history open to reveal the lives of two extraordinary women.

Review

Electrifying . This slim novel is a pocket epic; you will read it in no time but be thinking about it for ages after ... You feel in every sentence the weight of history pressing down on and confining these women -- FRANK COTTRELL-BOYCE ― GUARDIAN

This slim but powerful novel follows both medieval figures through their lives to the point of the fateful meeting ― SUNDAY TIMES, Twelve best historical novels of 2023

A tiny marvel, tenderly illuminating the inner lives of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich ― GUARDIAN, Best books of the year

It is an extraordinary feat of historical ventriloquism; the women's inner lives, their religiosity, their sense of place in the world is miraculously conjured ... Brilliantly done ― THE TIMES, Book of the Month

Transfixing ... A vibrant portrait of female courage ― OBSERVER

I adored Victoria Mackenzie's sparse and lyrical debut ... It's intimate, moving and a wonderful snapshot of two extraordinary women's lives -- Jan Carson ― IRISH TIMES, Best books of 2023

A novel like this requires exquisite balance, not to tip the hand towards one or other of the paired yet opposing characters. This achieves that admirably. It would also be a clever choice for the National Theatre of Scotland to adapt ― SCOTSMAN, Books of the Year 2023

Lightly done but intensely felt, it's mind-expanding stuff ― Guardian, Summer reading – 50 brilliant books to discover

About the Author

Victoria MacKenzie is a fiction writer and poet. She is the winner of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award and the inaugural Emerging Writer Award from Moniack Mhor. She was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, as well as being awarded prestigious writing residencies in Scotland, Finland and Australia. She teaches creative writing for the Open College of the Arts. She lives in Scotland.