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by Blair Hurley
A spellbinding confession of what it means to abandon one life for another, The Devoted asks what it takes, and what you'll sacrifice, to find enlightenment.
Nicole Hennessy's life revolves around her Zen practice at the Boston Zendo, seeking solace in the tenets of Buddhism to the chagrin of her Irish Catholic family. After a decade of grueling spiritual practice under her Master's tutelage, living on a shoestring budget as a shop clerk, Nicole has become dangerously entangled with her mentor. As Nicole confronts her past - a drug-fueled year spent fleeing her family's loaded silences and guilt-laden "Our Fathers" - and reinvents herself in New York City, her Master's intoxicating voice pursues her, an electrifying whisper on the other end of the phone. Somehow, he knows everything.
In deft, soaring prose that bristles with psychological and erotic tension, Blair Hurley crafts a thrilling exploration of Nicole's ecstatic quest for spirituality.
"Starred Review. All lovers of great fiction with complex characters as well as anyone fascinated by narratives about religious cults will want this insightful story." - Library Journal
"Not quite a spiritual thriller but a thoughtful exploration of faith, surrender, and ecstasy." - Kirkus
"This thoughtful novel carefully untangles the often knotty interconnection between romantic and religious love, revealing the dangers inherent in each without denying their value." - Publishers Weekly
"In Blair Hurley's beautifully written first novel, a young woman charts a spiritual journey into the rigors of Zen Buddhism in a Boston storefront Zendo, under the guidance of a charismatic Master who soon becomes her lover. The relationship between Master and student is candidly charted and wholly convincing. The intellectual austerity of Zen Buddhism is presented with all the clarity of Zen itself, a fascinating subject. ... A suspenseful and warmly engaging coming-of-age story." - Joyce Carol Oates
"Blair Hurley's first novel is a sharp-eyed account of the psychological and sexual hold a spiritual 'master' can get on a lost young woman. What could have seemed like a fable in other hands, in Hurley's is mordant and convincing. A spectacular debut!" - Edmund White
"Blair Hurley is a gorgeous writer. This novel brims with startling and organic metaphors that fuel, like Zen koans, the heart of a remarkable story. Unlike the Boston films of late, The Devoted gets the accents right." - Anita Shreve
"Blair Hurley's The Devoted is a thrilling, deep, fun, intense look at sex and faith, at East and West, and fraud and truth, at love and what it means to lose love. A remarkable debut, and more: a great read." - Darin Strauss
This information about The Devoted was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Blair Hurley is a Pushcart Prize winner whose work has appeared in West Branch and Mid-American Review, among other publications. A native of Boston, she now lives in Toronto, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto.
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