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The May Queen
Copyright © 2008 by Michelle Tocher
ISBN 978-0-9738776-2-5
There are a lot of great lines in The May Queen.
Click on the sleeping woman above to get a line from May!
What readers are saying about The May Queen
Well, at last, I delighted in concluding the journey with May et al this morning, sitting lakeside on a boathouse deck-chair with a thermos of freshly brewed coffee on the table… I had to resist the temptation of again reaching for yellow highlighters for every line that leapt off the page, for there were so many and transcribing them all would have been a nightmarish task.
What you really managed to do was humanize each of the main characters by exploring their many contradictory facets from so many perspectives. If a May were a crystal, we saw all of her, inside and out, and better yet, if the reader is open, we felt May, inside and out. So great to see those familiar stories like Goose Girl, Baba Yaga, Befana, etc. being referred to… it was cool to actually have a bit of an understanding of who these people are, and why these parallels were so intriguing.
Mostly, it was a true privilege to observe the miraculous inner workings of that hyper-fertile mind of yours. You have been an incredibly keen observer of human nature all these years, curiously digging up new ways to understand love, lust, envy, hate—to be able to imagine a mother as distant as Cora’s, to explain the impact that had on both her and May, two very different reactions to the same family upbringing. I loved May and Gerald’s complicated relationship, complicated by taboo, by marriage, by lust.
And of course, I am hopelessly in love with May—just say it, Frank, just say it.
—Andy Frank, Broadcaster
I’m going to say you’ve got to stop writing books because I started reading your book yesterday, even though I had my library books to finish up, and I guess I’m about half way through, and I don’t seem to be able to get anything else done in my life! But I’m really fascinated, longing to get back and find out what happens to these characters in the story. I just was drawn into it again, like your other one (The Tower Princess). So I thought I really must tell you, Michelle, not to write any other books until I get other things done first! I’m really enjoying it … I find it very moving too—very very moving …
—Clare Boyle, member of the Jungian Foundation of Ontario
I have read your book and I am very impressed. An incredible achievement. It is remarkable, the way you are able to get into the different people’s way of thinking and feeling, switching from one to the other and then the complex relationships they have to each other … the journey of consciousness and self discovery … thank you for your book!
—Erika Baempfer Deery, Artist, website
I so enjoyed reading The May Queen—I hope that many others do too—For me it took form subtly as the story unfolded. I didn’t realize how much I’d invested in its reading at first till I found I looked forward to returning to the last pages I’d read and felt like I was meeting my friends—the characters and the ideas. That to me is what a well-crafted piece of writing does for its readers.
—Jennifer Butson, Author, Out of Paper blog
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