The Difficulty Of Writing A Novel In The Voice Of The Virgin Mary Colm Tóibín: "The novel is actually a secular space. The novel is not made for miracles. It's made for ordeal. It's made for material things. ... This almost needed none of that. It needed a sense of grandeur that normally the novel doesn't entertain. It's all voice, but the voice is heightened." The Wall Street Journal 11/12/12