Book Review: Lying Awake by Mark Saltzman

reviewed by Sr. Catherine Clare, CSM

Since the publication of Rumer Godden’ s In This House of Brede it has been rare, if not impossible, to find a novel that treated the religious life without glaring inaccuracies. Even rarer have been stories about mystical experience that do not have a sense of the theatrical. Thus, Lying Awake was a pleasant surprise.

In this spare but beautifully written novel we read of a Carmelite nun, Sr. St. John of the Cross, living in a convent near present day Los Angeles. After years of experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul, Sr. John has been given the gift of mystical experience, and has written a popular book. But the visions and revelations come at the cost of intense headaches. After seeing a series of doctors Sr. John learns that she has a tumor in an area of her brain known to cause symptoms that mimic her experiences. Now Sr. John must make a decision; should she consent to a surgery which could leave her not only without the mystical experiences but also with significant brain damage, or does she refuse surgery and keep the mystical experiences, perhaps at the cost of her life?

The strength of the novel lies in the clear description of Sr. John’s prayerful thinking process as she makes her decision and the genuinely good reasons for making it. For those of us in the religious life, the outcome is a satisfying one. For those of you not living the religious life, the outcome will give you a glimpse into the intensely private part of a sister’s spiritual life.