The Golden Thread

In 11 linked stories that trace the life of a young nun from her initiation to convent life through her eventual withdrawal, her intimate experience is voiced in lyrical and elegiac tones. We follow idealistic, insightful Claire Delaney as she is drawn to the spirituality of consecrated virginity. Within the convent community she finds ordered beauty and fulfillment, as well as all-too-human pettiness and stultifying routines that defy sublimation. For over a decade she experiences precious epiphanies as a teacher, as an accomplished musician, and as a voyager in spiritual depths. The winds of Vatican II blowing through the institutional Church in the '60s provoke troubling questions as they prepare the way for Claire to test her faith outside the convent. These beautifully nuanced stories take the reader into the microcosm of a religious community, as it once was, and make its attraction credible. Copeland (a pseudonym), who lives in Canada, is a former member of a religous teaching order. (Sept.)