The Nun
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Italian PEN Prize: A tale of illicit love and a girl forced into a convent in the early nineteenth century.
1839, Messina, Italy: Agata is the daughter of an aristocrat, albeit an impoverished one, and she has fallen in love with wealthy Giacomo Lepre. Their families, however, view their romance as unacceptable and tawdry—and when Agata’s father dies, her mother decides to ferry her daughter far away, to Naples, where she hopes to garner a stipend from the king.
The only boat leaving Messina that day is captained by young Englishman James Garson. Following a tempestuous passage to Naples, during which Agata confesses her troubles to James, Agata and her mother find themselves rebuffed by the king, and Agata is forced to join a convent. The Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Stilita is rife with rancor and jealousy, illicit passions and ancient feuds. But Agata remains aloof, devoting herself to the cultivation of medicinal herbs, calmed by the steady rhythms of monastic life. She reads all the books James sends her and follows the news of the various factions struggling to bring unity to Italy.
She has accepted her life as a nun, but she is divided between her yearnings for purity and religiosity and her desire to be part of the world. And she is increasingly torn when she realizes that her feelings for James, though he is only a distant presence in her life, have eclipsed those for Lepre . . .
“Hornby enriches her story with sensuous details of food, fashion, furnishings, and the rules of an extravagant society, savoring local color and personality quirks.” —Publishers Weekly
“An historical novel, a coming-of-age novel, a perfect portrait of family dynamics, The Nun also gives us, in Agata, an unforgettable heroine.” —Gazzetta di Mantova
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Agata Padellani, the rebellious daughter of a poor Neapolitan officer from an aristocratic family and his Sicilian wife, is forced to become a nun at age 16, her defiant spirit as resilient as the burgeoning Italian unification movement. Hornby (The Almond Picker) sets her novel in 19th century Italy, beginning in Messina in 1839, as the feast of the Assumption is celebrated at the Padellanis with a solemn procession and a lavish open house, during which Agata sneaks out to rendezvous with her inamorata whose family has other ideas about who he'll wed. This stolen moment quickly becomes a mere memory when Agata's father dies and the family decamps to Naples to appeal to relatives and the king. Instead they are reduced to "poor relations," and Agata's mother arranges for Agata to enter a Benedictine convent. Reluctant at first, she eventually finds solace reading novels supplied by the handsome English captain she met on the voyage from Messina, hiding her brother-in-law's revolutionary materials, baking bread, and working as an herbalist and healer, but she also longs for the outside world and freedom from corrupt church politics. Hornby enriches her story with sensuous details of food, fashion, furnishings, and the rules of an extravagant society, savoring local color and personality quirks. Her language is so lush, her heroine so determined, and the landscape she paints so inviting, that it's easy to overlook some heated language "quivering with passion for the Italian cause" and to succumb to the charm of this thoroughly Italian historical romance.
