And Then There Were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life - Softcover

Christmas, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1553657993 ISBN 13: 9781553657996

Publisher: Greystone Books, 2013

Synopsis

With humor and opinions aplenty, a woman embarks on an unconventional quest to see if she is meant to be a nun.

Just as Jane Christmas decides to enter a convent in mid-life to find out whether she is nun material”, her long-term partner Colin, suddenly springs a marriage proposal on her. Determined not to let her monastic dreams be sidelined, Christmas puts her engagement on hold and embarks on an extraordinary year long adventure to four convents one in Canada and three in the UK. In these communities of cloistered nuns and monks, she shares and at times chafes and rails against the silent, simple existence she has sought all of her life. Christmas takes this spiritual quest seriously, but her story is full of the candid insights, humorous social faux pas, profane outbursts, and epiphanies that make her books so relatable and popular. And Then There Were Nuns offers a seldom-seen look inside modern cloistered life, and it is sure to ruffle more than a few starched collars among the ecclesiastical set.

About this title

About the Author:

Jane Christmas is the author of Incontinent on the Continent, What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim, and The Pelee Project. She has three grown children and now lives in London, England.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* How awkward. Fiftyish Christmas’ long-term, long-distance boyfriend proposes just when she’s decided she wants to become a nun. But does she really? Christmas takes readers along on a thought-provoking (and often amusing) journey to four—count ’em, four—cloistered communities in Great Britain, as she tries to make her life-changing decision over the course of many months. Along the way, she meets monks, nuns (both Catholic and Anglican), a demon or two, and possibly Jesus. Although she writes with a light touch, Christmas girds the narrative with solid questions. What does the religious life really entail? Why are religious communities almost forgotten, even by those of their faith? How do you choose between paths that are equally joyous and difficult, albeit in thoroughly dissimilar ways? As Jane (and it’s hard to think of her as anything but Jane) and the audience come to learn, a traumatic event in her life must be resurrected and addressed while her future is being decided. This is the best kind of memoir, revealing, refreshing, and reflective enough to make readers turn many of the questions on themselves. A delightful trip down the road less traveled. --Ilene Cooper

About this edition

• Publisher: Greystone Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1553657993
• ISBN 13: 9781553657996
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304