A Recent Martyr

Valerie Martin's third novel is the story of a deadly love triangle set in New Orleans. Emma Miller, married and the mother of a five-year-old daughter, is obsessed by her increasingly sadomasochistic relationship with Pascal Toussaint, who is himself fixated upon Claire D'Anjou, a young novice with a passion for God so powerful that she has been sent home to New Orleans by the convent for a year's test of her vocation.In a city overrun by rats and awash in a mysterious plague, freedom and the consuming desire for self-sacrifice are pursued to harrowing, ultimately redemptive consequence. New Orleans - alluring, pleasure-loving, mesmerizing - remains both a force in its own right and a backdrop to the erotic contests at the center of the novel that established Martin as a major American voice.