In Search of Real Gardens: A Novelist’s Onsite Research

“A fairytale is an imaginary garden with real toads in it.”



I don’t know the source of this quotation, but I take it as my starting point for this account, because the opposite definition applies to my novels about the Celtic Mary Magdalen. Maeve is an imaginary character, with no claim to historicity, but she lives in this world, and I want my depiction of it to be as vivid and accurate as possible -- a real garden, or brothel, temple, sacred grove, city. For each of the three novels, I have done onsite research, as well as extensive reading, and in every case my encounter with the land itself has helped to inform the story.



For The Passion of Mary Magdalen, I made trips to Italy and to Israel. In Rome I wandered arou View the rest of this article