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Lying Awake
by Mark Salzman

This is a deep look at the daily life of Sister John, a woman who becomes a Carmelite nun. If it weren't a novel, it might read as an exceptionally good anthropological study of the inner life of a nun. There is a quiet drama here, too, which takes you far beyond what an anthropological study could offer.

Religious terms abound. This is an authentic expedition into the cloistered halls and quiet yet troubled gardens of a Carmelite nunnery located physically in Los Angeles, but far from it in every other way.

A gifted poet, Sister John shares her divine visions through her poetry. But perhaps the visions are the result of a brain tumor. She faces hard decisions; what if the visions vanish with her tumor? Would not her life have been wasted in the service of a contemplative religious order?

There's a rare insight provided into the side-effects of epilepsy. Epileptic visions give the viewer incredible focus on a narrow area, and are often associated with extreme graphic or written output. You could almost build a religion on epileptic symptoms alone. Sister John's visits to hospital for testing provide a subtly toned contrast between the Medical Order and the Carmelite Order.

Salzman, usually funny, is not funny here. In his other books, he has always been searching for enlightenment. Here he illuminates a religious life from the viewpoint of the individual nun. In the context of a true trial of faith, that's the crux of it. Or as it turns out perhaps the crux is that it's all in the context of her relationship to her sisters in the church.

Will she ultimately decide to give up her brain tumor and her visions of God? Her publication of poetry that moved so many; will the muse stop after her tumor is gone? And what will that mean to her, contemplative and yet bereft of God for so many years until the visions began? Are the visions false? (How could they be? -- yet the church is quite careful about this.) What is the effect on those around her when she passes out and is found unconscious, lying flat on the cold stone floor?

Flashbacks show Sister John's former life, leading to her decision to enter the convent. A novice nun entering the convent during the real time of the story permits Salzman to describe a novitiate's doubts about religious life. A visit from Sister John's estranged mother points up how her own outlook has changed in the decade and a half in the cloister.

As an aside, a priest I once met felt that Salzman had really captured what it meant to be a Carmelite nun, in solitary and meditative service.

So, the book is imbued with the agony and the ecstasy of religious life and ends up describing either the height of religious awareness or the symptomatology and side effects which can be associated with a brain tumor.

Go ahead, enter the cloistered site of amazon.com and start Lying Awake by Mark Salzman

Reviewed April 28, 2001