Summary and Reviews of Lying Awake by Mark Salzman

Lying Awake by Mark Salzman

Lying Awake

by Mark Salzman
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 1, 2000, 192 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2001, 192 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

With extraordinary dexterity, the author brings to life the mysterious world of the cloister, and of one woman's trial at the perilous intersection of faith and reason.

In a Carmelite monastery outside present-day Los Angeles, life goes on in a manner virtually unchanged for centuries. Sister John of the Cross has spent years there in the service of God. And there, she alone experiences visions of such dazzling power and insight that she is looked upon as a spiritual master.

But Sister John's visions are accompanied by powerful headaches, and when a doctor reveals that they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice. For if her spiritual gifts are symptoms of illness rather than grace, will a "cure" mean the end of her visions and a soul once again dry and searching?

This is the dilemma at the heart of Mark Salzman's spare, astonishing new novel. With extraordinary dexterity, the author of the best-selling Iron & Silk and The Soloist brings to life the mysterious world of the cloister, giving us a brilliantly realized portrait of women today drawn to the rigors of an ancient religious life, and of one woman's trial at the perilous intersection of faith and reason.

Lying Awake is a novel of remarkable empathy and imagination, and Mark Salzman's most provocative work to date.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Entertainment Weekly
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.

New York Magazine - Daniel Mendelsohn
Readers interested in lyricism, the bone-beautiful kind that arises from all 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...

Library Journal
In this spare, affecting novel, Salzman (Lost in Place, The Soloist) creates a compelling portrait of faith and the interior life.

Publishers Weekly
Mysticism meets modern medicine in this intriguing account of a nun's dark night of the soul.

Kirkus Reviews
A deliberate and somewhat plodding account of life inside a Carmelite convent, told with a surfeit of awe by Salzman.

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Read-Alikes

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