Motherhouse: A Novel - Hardcover

Hathaway, Jeanine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1562829890 ISBN 13: 9781562829896

Publisher: Hyperion, 1993

Synopsis

Drawn by her devout faith, young Jeanine enters the Dominican order of nuns to prepare for a life of service and self-denial, but the death of her beloved brother and her father's abandonment of his family throw her life into turmoil, in a autobiographical novel. A first novel.

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Reviews

First novelist Hathaway exhibits delicate control over powerful material-- the travails of a young woman whose deep religious faith is fulfilled and then tested. In 1963, at age 18, Jeanine Buchwald enters a convent, and then must navigate the turbulent years of change that rapidly follow. Told in passionate, unsentimental prose, her story becomes a metaphor for the struggles of many during that decade, as commonly accepted rules of order--in convents and in the world--fell before the challenge of individuality. Raised in Chicago, the eldest of nine children, Jeanine becomes Sister Kristin after two years of study and begins teaching in elementary schools in the Midwest. As the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council shake the structure of her chosen life and her convictions about her calling ("I entered the religious life with a whole heart and ever since have been taking it back . . ."), a brother dies in a car accident and her parents separate. Like her namesake St. Joan, Jeanine--she has discarded her nun's name along with her habit--must learn to hear and heed her own voice. Grounded firmly in concrete details but unequivocally spiritual, this is a lyrical, inspiring chronicle.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Jeanine is the oldest of nine children. As such, she has early responsibility for the care of her siblings. She has very little privacy at home, so she invents a private country getaway in her mind where she can retreat as needed. Her Catholic schooling, her ulcer-producing home life, and her romantic view of cloistered life lead her to pursue a career as a nun. But instead of the stable, unchanging environment she expected, Jeanine finds change to be a way of life at the cloister, and she must struggle to adapt to this new view of her surroundings. Jeanine's search for herself in the context of her religious vocation is moving and inspiring, and Hathaway writes beautifully. Recommended for popular collections.
- Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1562829890
• ISBN 13: 9781562829896
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184