Lying Awake

by Mark Salzman Narrated by Linda Stephens

Overview

Mark Salzman received critical acclaim for Iron & Silk, his personal account of two years spent in China. In Lying Awake, he creates a fascinating spiritual landscape that lies behind the walls of a monastery. Readers around the world praise the beauty and originality of this novel. Sister John has devoted her life to serving God. For almost 30 years she has lived in a Carmelite monastery near Los Angeles. There, she experiences religious visions of such intensity that she is revered by the other nuns. But these visions also bring on excruciating headaches. When she is offered an operation that may stop the pain, she realizes that it may also stop the visions. Now Sister John wonders how this change will affect her faith. Lying Awake is an eloquent examination of religious experience that transcends the boundaries of church and doctrine. Narrator Linda Stephens perfectly conveys Sister John's thoughts, feelings, and visions.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

Mark Salzman's critically acclaimed novel brings to life the mysterious world of the cloister, giving us a brilliantly realized portrait of contemporary women drawn to the rigors of an ancient religious life.

Louis Bayard

A singularly rich and abundant work, and one that plays by its own rules. Unironic and un-self-conscious, Lying Awake is, like the life it portrays, a quiet, stubborn movement against the postmodern grain . . .
—New York Times Book Review

Hodgman

In an era of trendy spirituality, Salzman has rendered the real thing. His book should be short-listed for all the literary prizes, but it has the kind of grace that doesn't demand them.
—Entertainment Weekly

Daniel Mendelsohn

Readers interested in lyricism, the bone-beautiful kind that arises from amll thing intensely considered, would do well to pick up Mark Salzman's Lying Awake...the concreteness and economy of Salzman's writing, his eye and ear for tiny, resonant details eventually yield their riches in a clear-eyed vision—not, perhaps, of what God means, but certainly of what it means to be a human being...
—New York Magazine

Kirkus Reviews

A deliberate and somewhat plodding account of life inside a Carmelite convent, told with a surfeit of awe by Salzman (The Soloist, 1994; the nonfiction Lost in Place, 1995), who seems to have read too much Rumer Godden for his own good.

From the Publisher

"A lean, seemingly effortless tour de force...a perfect little novel."
—The New Yorker

"Spare, luminous...Salzman makes this cloistered society not only believable, but also compelling."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"A singularly rich and abundant work.... [Salzman has an] ability to convey spiritual states with a lambent clarity."
—The New York Times Book Review

"A satisfying and evocative questioning of faith and art."
—The Oregonian

"Mark Salzman is...a poet, capturing in the pages of Lying Awake, his shining novel about devotion and doubt, a mysticism that reaches back in time to an older tradition, yet dwells easily in the present."
—Los Angeles Times

"A gentle story.... Graceful, lucid and enjoyable."
—Newsday

"Elegant.... Salzman's depiction of Sister John's conflict, convent life and this society of devoted women is a marvelous accomplishment."
—The Seattle Times

"Lying Awake showcases an almost ethereal talent, one that can handle complex ideas with a touch lighter than air."
—New York Post

DEC/JAN 02 - AudioFile

Salzman creates a thought-provoking tale of Sister John, a Carmelite nun who, after thirty years in a monastery, begins experiencing religious visions. Her writings on the subject attract a little attention and make money for things like a new roof. When her doctor tells her that her visions are caused by epilepsy, which can be cured with an operation, what follows is her struggle with the prickly issues of the incorporeal versus the material world. Narrator Linda Stephens uses slow and steady pacing filled with pauses to suggest the contemplative life. The overall tone is somber and reflective. She gives Sister John a questioning air that feels right, yet she still manages to convey the great joy the heroine feels receiving, as she believes, the grace of God. The pace and mood fit the subject, and listeners will appreciate the unhurried moments to consider all this thoughtful story has to offer. D.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170909711
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	06/06/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

July 25
Saint James, Apostle
Sister John of the Cross pushed her blanket aside, dropped to her knees on the floor of her cell, and offered the day to God.

Every moment a beginning, every moment an end.
The silence of the monastery coaxed her out of herself, calling her to search for something unfelt, unknown, and unimagined. Her spirit responded to this call with an algorithm of longing. Every moment of being contained an indivisible — and invisible — denominator.
She lit a vigil candle and faced the plain wooden cross on the wall. It had no corpus because, in spirit, she belonged there, taking Christ's place and helping relieve his burden.

Suffering borne by two is nearly joy.
Fighting the stiffness in her limbs, she lifted her brown scapular, symbol of the yoke of Christ, and began the clothing prayer:

Clothe me, O Lord, with the armor of salvation.
She let the robe's two panels drop from her shoulders to the hemline, back and front, then stepped into the rough sandals that identified her as a member of the Order of Discalced — shoeless — Carmelites, founded by Saint Teresa of Avila in the sixteenth century.

Purify my mind and heart. Empty me of my own will, that I may be filled with Yours.
A linen wimple, with the black veil of Profession sewn to its crown, left only the oval of her face exposed. Mirrors were not permitted in the cloister, but after twenty-eight years of carrying out this ritual every morning, she could see with her fingers as she adjusted the layers of fabric to a pleasing symmetry.

Let these clothes remind me of my consecration to this life of enclosure, silence, and solitude.
She sat at her desk to read through the poems she had written the night before — keeping her up until past midnight — and made a few changes. Then she made her bed and carried her washbasin out to the dormitory bathroom. She walked quietly so as not to wake her Sisters, who would not stir for at least another hour. The night light at the end of the hall was shaded with a transparency of a rose window; its reflection on the polished wood floor fanned out like a peacock's tail.
As Sister John emptied the basin into the sink, taking care to avoid splashing, the motion of the water as it spiraled toward the drain triggered a spell of vertigo. It was a welcome sensation; she experienced it as a rising from within, as if her spirit could no longer be contained by her body.

Wherever You lead me, I will follow.
Instead of going to the choir to wait for the others, she returned to her cell, knelt down on the floor again, and unfocused her eyes.

Blessed is that servant whom the master finds awake when he comes.
Pure awareness stripped her of everything. She became an ember carried upward by the heat of an invisible flame. Higher and higher she rose, away from all she knew. Powerless to save herself, she drifted up toward infinity until the vacuum sucked the feeble light out of her.
? ? ?
A darkness so pure it glistened, then out of that darkness,
nova.
More luminous than any sun, transcending visibility, the flare consumed everything, it lit up all of existence. In this radiance she could see forever, and everywhere she looked, she saw God's love. As soon as she could move again, she opened her notebook and began writing.

Copyright 2001 by Mark Salzman

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