The Cloister

Carroll’s latest novel (after Warburg in Rome) is a sweeping, heartbreaking blend of history and fiction. In 1142 in the Duchy of Bourgogne, the aging Abbess Héloïse finds the dead body of her former lover, Peter Abelard. This story line is woven together with the 1950 story of Father Michael Kavanagh, a New York priest, and Rachel Vedette, a museum docent. They meet when he takes shelter from a rainstorm in the Cloisters at the top of Manhattan, where Rachel works. Over multiple meetings, the two build a rapport; back in the 12th century, Peter and Héloïse’s love story unfolds. Rachel and Michael are both haunted by people from their pasts—her now-dead father, whose life’s work was an unfinished book on Abelard, and his lost friend from seminary. As Michael discovers his friend’s secrets and Rachel deals with her complicated feelings about her father, Héloïse and Peter’s troubles escalate. The entwined stories move at an engrossing rhythm, making this a very magnetic, satisfying novel. (Mar.)