ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
"A NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT . . . Russell shows herself to be a skillful
storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense".
--USA Today
"AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED . . . If you have to send a group of
people to a newly discovered planet to contact a totally unknown
species, whom would you choose? How about four Jesuit priests, a young
astronomer, a physician, her engineer husband, and a child
prostitute-turned-computer-expert? That's who Mary Doria Russell sends
in her new novel, The Sparrow. This motley combination of agnostics,
true believers, and misfits becomes the first to explore the Alpha
Centuri world of Rakhat with both enlightening and disastrous results. .
. . Vivid and engaging . . . An incredible novel".
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"POWERFUL . . . Father Emilio Sandoz [is] the only survivor of a
Jesuit mission to the planet Rakhat, 'a soul . . . looking for God.' We
first meet him in Italy . . . sullen and bitter. . . . But he was not
always this way, as we learn through flashbacks that tell the story of
the ill-fated trip. . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with
grace and intelligence".
--San Francisco Chronicle
"SMOOTH STORYTELLING AND GORGEOUS CHARACTERIZATION . . . Important
novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our
blinders. The Sparrow is one of them".
--Entertainment Weekly
SELECTED BY THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB
