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 Sister Mary Hilary
runs away, on
impulse, from the strict contemplative
convent she entered at the age of 17.
During 22 years of cloistered
silence, living as Christ's Virgin Bride
in the rural depths of Norfolk, she has
never handled money, never watched
TV or read the papers, never worn a
bra or looked at herself in the mirror.
So when she arrives on Christmas Eve
in the crowded chaos of London
she is completely overwhelmed.
Casting off the straitjacket of her
long medieval robes, she comes naked
into the modern world, aghast at
its permissiveness. (In the convent,
unchaste thoughts were punished
with a self-inflicted whipping.)
Guiltily, she gropes her way towards
the unfamiliar pleasures of friendship,
sensuality and love; bewildered
when a priest tries to seduce her, and
a Charismatic Conference seems
a hotbed of hysteria. She has to learn
a whole new lifestyle - new ways
of thinking, even moving, new ways
of relating, first to the kindly but
problematic Ivan, an Alexander teacher
who literally loosens her up, then
to domineering Robert, who whisks her
off to his inland lighthouse, and finally
to 7-year-old Luke who, like her,
has lost his family.
Devils, For A Change takes a sharp
look at contemporary society through
the eyes of an outsider, a 39-year-old
adolescent battling to find an identity
after a lifetime of suppressing the self,
who now needs a self in order to survive.
Devils, For A
Change should come with a health-warning
- start reading it at bedtime and you won't put it down until
dawn. Perriam combines humour with real anguish, and fun.
Buy it, even if you have to mortgage the week's lunch.
She
A joyous book . . . daring,
provocative and brutally honest.
A celebration of life and a triumph.
Time Out
A stunningly readable,
absorbing account of those enthralling
lands where guilt ends, religion starts, and sex takes off.
Fay Weldon
Perriam has come a long way
since Absinthe for Elevenses.
At the time of her first novel she aimed at exposing the ridiculous.
Now she has touched on the sublime.
Glasgow Herald |
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"Before writing this novel, I interviewed several ex-nuns and heard
some chilling stories about their life "inside". I even stayed in three
contemplative convents, living in a nun's cell and following the regime of 8 daily visits
to the chapel and almost total silence - a marked contrast to the Charismatic Conference I
attended shortly after. There, all was noise and confusion: people speaking in tongues;
uproarious applause at so-called miracles; the howling of the demonised, writhing in
anguish on the floor. A man-and-wife healing team tried to drive a devil out of me, but I
fled back to the safety of my room. I've always been wary of religious excess, whether in
the silent cloister or at hysterical mass rallies."
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You can buy this book with a personal hand-written inscription by Wendy Perriam.
See the contact details at the bottom of the newsletter or buying books section.
Every book from "Absinthe" to "Breaking and Entering" has been re-published in paperback by Back-in-Print Books Ltd,
available from most good bookshops and outlets. (distributed by Gardners Books).
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© Wendy Perriam 1998 - 2008
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