Behold Your King — Naomi Mitchison

In this unusual and accomplished novel Naomi Mitchison retells in realistic terms and colloquial dialogue the story of the passion and death of Jesus, hour by hour, as it unfolds over the twenty-four hours of Good Friday. In a restless Jerusalem under Roman occupation, political and personal agendas lead inexorably to the crucifixion, while the followers of Jesus - his mother, the fishermen, young Mary of Magdala - can only wait, unhappy and confused. Mitchison, probably inspired by the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947-56, drew, in writing this novel, not only on the New Testament gospels but also on fragmentary or lost gospels and on tradition. Herself a humanist, she scrupulously presents 'the historical Jesus'. But at the end of the novel, as the disciples keep watch by the garden tomb, she leaves the reader with a question: what happened next? Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian who lives in Glasgow. She is the author of Mitchison's Ghosts (Humming Earth, 2008), on supernatural and mythical elements in the writing of Naomi Mitchison, and is working on a collected edition of Mitchison's essays and journalism to be published by Kennedy & Boyd.