One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?
Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
"Thrilling and heartbreaking. Groff. . . crafts an electric work of historical fiction." - TIME
"[A] page-by-page pleasure as we soar with her. " - New York Times Book Review
"Incandescent. . .Woven from Groff's trademark ecstatic sentences and brimming with spiritual fervor, Matrix is a radiant work of imagination and accomplishment." -Esquire
"In Lauren Groff's hands, the tale of a medieval nunnery is must-read fiction." - The Washington Post
"A gorgeously written celebration of female desire and creativity, with a formidable heroine." - The Guardian
"The medieval nun drama you didn't know you needed. . . . The femme energy in this book is strong, with hardly a man to be found in 272 pages . . . Fans. . . . will appreciate [Groff's] gift for conjuring isolated communities, places where people are forced together by faith and circumstance -- and the intimacies and frustrations that result." - Vulture
"A bold new direction for the accomplished writer." - Vogue
"A mesmerizing study of faith, passion and violence." - Harper's Bazaar
"Sumptuous, sublime . . engrossing." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Expansive . . . . passionately feminist, funny and even a bit profane." - Good Housekeeping
"This transportive and meditative tale that will swallow you up from the very start." - Newsweek
"A premier stylist, [Groff] continues to grow....The voice she finds for Marie de France...will hold readers fast." - Los Angeles Times
"Stunning . . .grand, mythic . . .feels both ancient and urgent, as holy as it is deeply human." - Entertainment Weekly
"A relentless exhibition of Groff's freakish talent. In just over 250 pages, she gives us a character study to rival Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell or Robert Caro's Robert Moses." - USA Today
"Groff has created a labyrinth of jewel-like moments . . . and transformed it into a novel that is perfect for right now." -BookPage
"Splendid with rich description and period vocabulary, this courageous and spine-tingling novel shows an incredible range for Groff ( Florida, 2018), and will envelop readers fully in Marie's world, interior and exterior, all senses lit up. It is both a complete departure and an easy-to-envision tale of faith, power, and temptation." - Booklist
"Set in early medieval Europe, this book paints a rousing portrait of an abbess seizing and holding power. . .Groff's trademarkworthy sentences bring vivid buoyancy to a magisterial story." - Kirkus
"Transcendent prose and vividly described settings bring to life historic events, from the Crusades to the papal interdict of 1208. Groff has outdone herself with an accomplishment as radiant as Marie's visions." - Publishers Weekly
