And Then They Were Nuns: A Novel - Softcover

Leonardi, Susan J.

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52 ratings by Goodreads

9781563411267: And Then They Were Nuns: A Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1563411261 ISBN 13: 9781563411267

Publisher: Firebrand Books, 2003

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"Beatrice has probably told you that when someone starts talking about staying, we usually send her home for a while, away from the seductions of these holy hills, so she can decide whether she really wants to plant herself in a nunnery. And to make sure she's not running away. As I was."

Julian Pines Abbey. From 1965-2000, women come and stay or come and go, in a quiet experiment to remake religious and communal life. No tradition is safe from revision - not the tradition that says God is male, or that women can't be priests, or that nuns must be celibate.

With a vision both generous and uncompromising, And Then They Were Nuns tells the story of the women who, as Sister Anne says, come for all the wrong reasons and - if they stay - stumble on good ones, while they struggle (sometimes hilariously) with love, sex, community, snakes, neighbors, outhouses, poverty, goats, sanity, sobriety, sisterhood, compost, and the life of the spirit.

Includes a book club reader's guide.

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About the Author:

The author, Susan J. Leonardi, followed 16 years of Catholic education, (including time spent as a postulant in a California convent that was, she emphasizes, nothing like Julian Pines Abbey), with eight years of teaching in Catholic high schools. She currently teaches literature and writing at the University of Maryland and is the author of two works of non-fiction, Dangerous by Degrees and The Diva's Mouth (with Rebecca A. Pope).

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.