THE GOSPEL OF SALOME is a retelling of Biblical events set against the roiling backdrop of history’s first recorded pogrom, an examination of ideology and motherhood, and a poignant argument for love and equality in today’s world as well as its own context.

In 38 CE Alexandria, Salome, a skilled physician with a past she’s taken lengths to suppress, struggles to navigate the complex landscape of first-century womanhood and the rapid progression of dementia threatening both her memory and medical practice. 

John Mark, a new follower of the fledgling Christian movement, has been sent to preach the hope of Yeshua’s message in Alexandria’s synagogues. What he finds, however, is an oppressed and desperate people perhaps more in need of immediate help than eternal salvation: the Roman prefect Flaccus has labeled the Jewish population as alien, quarantining them away from the city’s daily life and consigning them to crushing poverty. 

As popular disdain for the Jewish people reaches a dangerous boiling point, John Mark turns to Salome for answers. Her story, which moves from the Greek countryside to the Roman Forum to the dusty hills of Nazareth, begins with a simple statement about Yeshua that threatens to change the characters and their world: “He was my son.”

PRAISE

“Sometimes you begin reading a novel and start to recognize it as the exact book you always wished someone would write. THE GOSPEL OF SALOME instantly rang all those bells for me, giving us full, complicated, flawed people who also happen to be central characters of the gospels. In just-barely-CE Alexandria, Salome — a fierce survivor and healer — begins to tell the story of how she gave up her infant son, a boy named Yeshua, to a couple from Nazareth. From there the mess of humanity rolls on. Brilliantly written on all levels (psychological, dramatic, lyrical), this is a phenomenal novel.”

— Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers and I Have Some Questions For You 

“In Kaethe Schwehn’s numinous historical novel, an aging physician is asked about her connection to Jesus of Nazareth… The narrative moves like a metronome through time. Salome’s memories are a warm window into her formative years learning medicine. Indeed, the prose shimmers thanks to her organic details about the biology of the human body. Mari, Josef, and Salome have disagreements over Jesus’s future; these are used to reframe the gospel story and its characters in refreshing and profound ways, putting messy flesh on names from antiquity. Moments of agonizing emotion and callous evil arise throughout, reflecting the complex human dramas of first-century society.

The Gospel of Salome is an enthralling biblical novel in which a woman reckons with her past, helping a man choose what story he should tell the world.”

— Foreword Reviews

"I loved the dark beauty of Kaethe Schwehn's The Gospel of Salome. It has all the scope and depth of vast history, and all the intimacy and emotion of detailed imagination. Schwehn's language brings an incredible range of characters and places to life, pairing poetic force and narrative suspense for a story that will have you torn between flying through the pages and lingering over every word. An astonishing achievement." --V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night and Love Marriage

“I loved the dark beauty of Kaethe Schwehn’s The Gospel of Salome. It has all the scope and depth of vast history, and all the intimacy and emotion of detailed imagination. Schwehn’s language brings an incredible range of characters and places to life, pairing poetic force and narrative suspense for a story that will have you torn between flying through the pages and lingering over every word. An astonishing achievement.”

— V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night (winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2024 Carol Shields Prize)

“An extraordinary novel shaped by the kind of rare imagination that brooks no limits. Inside the outlines of a story familiar to many of us, Schwehn has conjured an utterly original and vivid tale of agency, of callings, of self-definition, of suffering and love and devotion— so that reading this novel feels like digging up a well-trod path to discover, beneath, a whole subterranean ocean. This is a gorgeous, daring book, and I loved it.”

— Clare Beams, author of The Garden and The Illness Lesson

“‘The Gospel of Salome’ is a bold and beautiful reimagining… In this richly rendered tale, Kaethe Schwehn breathes life into Salome, a complex figure with her own compelling voice and vision.”

— Rebecca Kanner, author of Sinners and the Sea and The Last One Seen: A Thriller

For a signed copy and book swag, pre-order by October 1st from Content Bookstore