Mary Mackey's Publications

Praise for Mary Mackey's Sugar Zone

In Sugar Zone, Mary Mackey takes you on a fascinating journey to the interior, somewhere between Saint Theresa's Inner Castle and the thicket of Eros—but also a place of desperate actuality, even if it is “on the other side of the world.” Mackey joins other visionary poets of dépaysement–Henri Michaux in Asia, John Ash in Anatolia, Sharon Doubiago in Peru, Lorca in Manhattan. But Mackey really seems to recover a lost part of herself in the edgy lyricism of the tropics, haunted by fado, forro, and death. Please read “Cold Snap”; who but Mackey could have written it? Sugar Zone authoritatively creates a language and a culture; but the lines are tense with the vulnerability of lovers, strangers, and travelers with no ticket home.
—Dennis Nurkse

Mary Mackey's new collection Sugar Zone is the culmination of many trips to Brazil. Most poems crackle with powerful and lush imagery; others are stark and draw their strength from the wisdom of the saying. These are death haunted poems but full of the vitality of the jungle, the favelas of Rio, the Amazon itself.
—Marge Piercy

Sugar Zone
Poems by Mary Mackey
Published by Marsh Hawk Press 2011
www.marshhawkpress.org
ISBN 978-0-9846353-1-3
$15.00

The Widow's War

“Mary Mackey gives her readers yet another woman warrior, this one a fighter in the Civil War. We thrill to the story of Carrie Vinton as she courageously takes the side of freedom over slavery” —Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior

With an “inventive imagination and crisp style,” bestselling author Mary Mackey has captured readers' hearts with her epic, sweeping works of historical fiction. Now in THE WIDOW'S WAR, she presents a novel of a woman's fierce spirit, rebellious love, and struggle for justice set against the backdrop of the approaching Civil War.

In 1853, Carolyn Vinton is left alone and pregnant in Rio de Janeiro when her fiancé, abolitionist Dr. William Saylor, disappears. Grieving and desperate, Carrie is easy prey for William's stepbrother, Deacon Presgrove, who convinces her that William is dead and offers to take her back to the United States and marry her to give her baby a father.

Carrie soon realizes that she has been betrayed at every turn by her new husband. Deacon's father is a proslavery senator, and Deacon plans to use Carrie's inheritance-not to fight slavery as he promised-but to support it. Carrie's love for William and her powerful abolitionist views have never died. When she discovers that William is alive and fighting to bring the Kansas Territory into the Union as a free state, she escapes the clutches of her husband and joins him.

Their passionate reunion takes place in the midst of a violent civil war that will soon engulf the entire nation. As abolitionists and proslavers battled over the Kansas Territory, fire and fury sweep across the plains threatening to tear Carrie and William apart forever.

When a band of pro-slavers kidnaps Carrie's child, William, and thirteen free blacks, Carrie arms a band of African-American soldiers and leads them into battle to save the hostages from certain death. Beautifully researched and written, The Widow's War is a fast-paced, compelling tale that offers readers passion, adventure, the magic of Afro-Brazilian religious practices, and the story of the first African American soldiers to fight in the Civil War.

The Widow's War
by Mary Mackey
Berkley Trade Paperback Original, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-425-22791-6
$15.00

The Notorious Mrs. Winston

Her novels have been praised for possessing meticulously accurate historical detail and a bountiful array of vibrant characters. Now Mary Mackey makes a grand return with a beautifully written story set during the American Civil War, as a fierce abolitionist in a loveless marriage falls helplessly in love with a Confederate soldier.

Married to an older man who sees her as little more than a possession, Claire Winston feels trapped and unhappy, but she knows her personal suffering pales in comparison to the hardships of the nation, which is teetering on the precipice of civil war. And she has a secret that helps ease her despair: her family's devotion to the cause of assisting runaway slaves to freedom, a purpose she embraces, and of which her husband is unaware.

Still, the empty pretense of her marriage makes her vulnerable to temptation, and soon she finds herself captivated by John Taylor, her husband's nephew. In his arms she finds the passion and tenderness her marriage lacks, but as much as John loves her, he is devoted first and foremost to the Confederacy, and to the band of rebel guerillas known as Morgan's Raiders.

Separated from John for more than two years by the forces of history, and by her husband's machinations, Claire will travel boldly across the war-torn country in search of her lover. Until, disguised as a male soldier, she finds herself drafted by none other than General Morgan himself, swept up in the greatest guerilla raid in American history, and caught between her loyalty to the Union and her love for John.

*Publishers Weekly

Acclaim for Mary Mackey's previous novels
"Grand adventure and a grand reading experience."
- Pat Conroy

"A complex, colorful saga, engrossing and realistic."
- Publishers Weekly

"Inventive and imaginative."
- The New York Times

"Deserves a place on the shelves next to the work of Jean Auel."
- Booklist

"Fascinating."
- Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Notorious Mrs Winston
Novel by Mary Mackey
Published by Berkley Books 2007
(The Penguin Publishing Group)
http://www.penguin.com/
ISBN 978-0-425-21512-8
$15.00

Breaking the Fever

Marsh Hawk Press has a poetry collective which features mary Mackey's work http://www.mhpress.blogspot.com/

"Most poets seem to write poetry with the will, relentlessly suppressing every part of themselves that isn't ecstatic. Mary Mackey writes as a whole person - mind and senses-and the poems are marvelous."
- Dennis Nurkse, author of Burnt Island

"The poetry in Breaking the Fever offers truths both personal & political, visions both actual and imaginatively broad. Ranging in setting from her childhood Indianapolis to a Brazilian favela, in subject from ecological tragedy to marital passion to the thoughts of a thoroughly contemporary Leda, Mary Mackey's crisp-edged perceptions are set down in this new collection of poems with a sensuous, compassionate, and utterly unflinching eye."
- Jane Hirshfield author of Given Sugar, Given Salt

"Your poems are delightful . . . even when they are elegiac"
- Wendell Berry, author of Given, from a letter to the Author

Breaking the Fever            
Poems by Mary Mackey
Published by Marsh Hawk Press 2006
www.marshhawk.press.org
ISBN 0-9724785-8-2
$15.00
Available from Small Press Distribution
http://www.spdbooks.org
Also available at bookstores and online booksellers

Sweet Revenge

In this delightfully wicked, deliciously funny romantic comedy, Kate Clemens introduces the unconventional Nora Wynn, a woman who finds herself in the revenge-consulting business - and business is booming. But revenge isn't so sweet when someone turns the tables on Nora herself . . . and this time, love may find a way to set things right.
Publication date: May, 2004

The Stand In

A spoiled movie star and an underpaid grocery store check-out clerk trade lives with hilarious consequences. Based on Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper", this novel is a comic look at the Hollywood Pecking Order. Written under Mackey's pen name Kate Clemens.

The Fires of Spring

“Fascinating…” —Marion Zimmer Bradley

In the year 4300 B.C., a young woman named Keshna comes of age as a female warrior and daring avenger. When the nomad diviner Changar kidnaps Queen Marrah’s son Keru, Keshna vows to hunt Changar down, but Changar has put Keru into a trance, taken possession of his soul, and turned him against his own people. Volume three of The Earthsong Trilogy.

“Mackey combines a researcher’s precision with storytelling magic.”
—Marija Gimbutas, author of The Civilization of the Goddess.

”Heart-pounding…”
—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul.

Season of Shadows

From the first day that polar opposite friends Lucy and Cassie meet at prep school, they are inseparable through Vietnam and Civil Rights marches to falling in love for the first time.

Lucy emerges from the turmoil engaged to the crown prince of Patan, poised to become the Princess of Paradise, while Cassie marries Lucy’s college flame, David, and struggles to balance married and working life.

When David rises to fame as a rock star, Cassie’s whole world shifts dramatically while, in the Himalayas, Lucy slips into the rhythm of a lifestyle that hasn’t changed in centuries. That is, until she realizes that her gilt palace is no better than a prison—complete with guards.

For both, escape is the only answer, but nothing comes without a price.

The Year the Horses Came

Volume One of The Earthsong Trilogy evokes the moment in pre-history when marauding nomads brought horses, male gods, and war to a goddess-worshipping Europe that had known peace for thousands of years. Against this perilous backdrop, a passionate, dangerous love develops between Marrah, a gifted priestess, and Stavan, one of the invading warriors.

“A researcher’s precision combined with storytelling magic.”
—Marija Gimbutas, author of The Civilization of the Goddess

“Vivid, dramatic, compelling.”
—Marge Piercy, author of Woman on the Edge of Time

"Fascinating . . . the best of its kind" - Marion Zimmer Bradley (author of "The Mists of Avalon")

A Grand Passion

From the Maryinksy Theatre in pre-Revolutionary Russia to the Lincoln Center in New York during the seventies, this is a generational story of three great ballerinas. Natasha Ladanova, a ballerina who has excelled in the Imperial Ballet with the help of the Grand Duke Alexis, a great admirer of Natasha’s. Nevertheless, even his great wealth cannot convince her to be with him, and she falls passionately in love with Sergei Maximov, who fathers her daughter, Tatiana Trey—and then breaks Natasha’s heart. Tatiana, equipped with her mother’s talent, moves to Hollywood in the 50s and struggles to dance in the heyday of silver screen ballerinas while fighting with polio. She passes her talent for the stage to her daughter, Alysa. Alysa Rochina, dances a major role in one of Maximov’s production. Will her performance finally bring her family to terms with their heritage of love and betrayal?

The Last Warrior Queen

Like Jean Auel and Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mary Mackey takes us to a place where myth and reality meet. The year is 3643 B.C.E. The great matriarchal cities which have dominated the earth are about to disappear as hordes of nomads overrun the fertile valleys of Mesopotamia. Born into one of these tribes is Inanna, a woman who speaks the language of plants and whose touch can heal. Led by her powers to the City of the Dove, where love is sacred and sex is an act of worship, Inanna fulfills her destiny by becoming a great warrior queen.

McCarthy's List

Written in the “first person insane,” McCarthy’s List is zany, hilarious, irreverent contemplation of the madness of American culture. Rinda Sue McCarthy, born at the precise moment the atomic bomb burst over Hiroshima, sits in a Mexican jail awaiting execution by firing squad. As the Mexican soldiers practice their marksmanship outside her cell, she writes her confession: a tale of the crimes committed against her by the leaders of a Conspiracy She Is Not At Liberty To Name, and her murderous, but utterly apt revenge. Who are They? Old boyfriends, professors, doctors, her former husband--all of whom have sexually abused her, intellectually trivialized her, performed unnecessary operations on her, and committed her to a mental hospital against her will, not to mention condemned her to death. Is Rinda Sue a paranoid schizophrenic driven mad by growing up in Indianapolis in an era when Joe McCarthy (no relation) was frightening America with his vision of a great, secret communist conspiracy? Or is her behavior the only sane response to an insane world? Either way, Mackey has written a brilliant, dark comedy, witty, misanthropic, and entirely hilarious.

Immersion

Isolated in a remote field station in the middle of a tropical rainforest in the late 1960's, a young woman named Kirsten rebels against traditional female roles and wages a desperate struggle for intellectual, spiritual, personal, and sexual liberation from her biologist husband who views her as a piece of property and the creatures of the rainforest as specimens to be killed, stuffed, and catalogued. The result of this tangle of adultery and relentless tropical heat leads to murder, but of an unexpected victim. First published in 1972 by Alta Gerry's legendary Shameless Hussy Press, Mary Mackey's Immersion was a ground-breaking novel written in a style simultaneously cinematic, poetic, and hallucinatory. In an era when "ecology" was a word so unfamiliar that some were still spelling it "ekology," Mackey chose to make the ecology of the tropical rain forests of Costa Rica one of her primary themes, depicting the beauty and fragility of a complex natural ecosystem endangered by human incursions. In many ways, Kirsten seems more a woman of the early twenty-first century than a woman of her own time, and in creating her, Mackey gives us a vision of the early stages of Second Wave feminism. Immersion was the first feminist novel published by a Second Wave feminist press, and is thus quite possibly the first eco-feminist novel ever published.