Cloistered My years as a nun

As a young adult in the 1990s, Coldstream was completely unmoored following her father's death and the subsequent sale of their family home. In her loss and grief, she was comforted by choral singing that offered glimmers of heaven and transcendent love. Touchstone relationships with an aunt who was "married to God" and another nun stoked Coldstream's own interest in a cloistered life. She visited a Carmelite priory in northern England and was taken with its setting "made for magic fulfillment": cloister, belltower, weathervane, orchards. Coldstream went through formation as aspirant, postulant, novice, and sister. She recounts a fascinating medieval way of life lived in her cell and choir stall, in the refectory and infirmary--a regimented life behind the grille. When her prioress informed her that she was not "ordinary" enough, the author was blindsided. Factions, favoritism, and stunning mistreatment left her reeling in a swirl of spiritual abuse. Readers interested in spiritual memoirs and religious formation, abuse, and reform will welcome Coldstream's intelligent, unflinching writing and perceptive account of years as a cloistered nun.

In this penetrating debut memoir, former nun Coldstream describes her 12 years in an English priory and the circumstances that led to her eventual departure. Raised in an emotionally chilly family, Coldstream became bereft at age 24 when her elderly father died. After involving herself with various religious groups in an effort to aid her "long passage... across unfamiliar landscape" of grief, Coldstream found comfort in silent prayer at northern England's Akenside Priory. Inspired by the discipline and ritual she encountered there, Coldstream joined the mostly silent nuns' ranks. As time wore on, however, her "hospital for wounded souls" turned icy and toxic, with infighting, big egos, and power struggles troubling the waters in which Coldstream initially found solace. After her conflicts with her fellow nuns reached a fever pitch over the course of a decade, the author fled the cloister in the middle of the night. In lyrical, evocative prose ("Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and stony archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch"), Coldstream opens a window into a reclusive culture, resolutely exposing its problems without losing sight of its virtues. The results will fascinate believers and non-believers alike. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary. (Mar.)