Immaculate

Winner of the prestigious The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award.

’Tragic and moving.’ HSU-MING TEO, previous winner of The Australian/Vogel’s Award

All Frances wants is a cure for her daughter, but that would take a miracle, and miracles aren’t something Frances believes in anymore.

Newly divorced from her pastor ex-husband and excommunicated from the church community she once worked within, she wrestles alone with the prognosis of her terminally ill child. Any suggestion of ’divine intervention’ is salt in the wound of her grief. So when Frances is forced to take in a homeless and pregnant teenage girl who claims to have had an immaculate conception, she’s deeply challenged.

But sixteen-year-old Mary is not who she seems, and soon opens the door to perspectives that profoundly shift Frances’s sense of reality, triggering a chain of astonishing events. It seems that where there is the greatest suffering lies an unexpected magic. Frances begins to hold hope for her family’s future, but the miracle prayed for is not always the one received.

Immaculate is a provocative and tender exploration of loss, identity and healing, and the secret worlds we hide within in order to survive.

Anna McGahan is the author of Metanoia and the collection of poetry, Skin. She is an actor, playwright and screenwriter, and has written essays for The Griffith Review, The Guardian and other publications. Anna lives in Meanjin (Brisbane), with her two daughters.