Sacred Hearts, by Sarah Dunant

By the time you finish reading the first few pages of Sarah Dunant's recent historical novel (her third), you will be swept into the intricate microcosm of a 16th century convent in northern Italy. Night has fallen at Santa Catarina, and the usual hush that blankets the damp stone cells of the dormitory has been broken by the echo of frenzied screams emanating from a 16-year old girl who has been forced into the convent against her will. Young Sarafina is outraged at her involuntary internment, and her ragged wailing has begun to wear on the holy sisters, who depend upon a precious span of sleep before being routed from their slumber at 1 a.m. for the office of Matins. Something must be done, and Suara (Sister) Zoana, the resident apothecary mistress, decides to break her vow of nocturnal isolation; she slips down the long stone hall to dispense a dram of poppy syrup to Sarafina. The poor girl is so miserable and desperate that Suara Zoana breaks nighttime protocol and verbally comforts Sarafina as the drug takes effect. An empathetic bond forms that night which will alter the course of both their lives and the future of Santa Catarina.

Zoana herself was not a willing postulant when she entered the gates of Santa Catarina 16 years before as a recently orphaned young girl, and her involuntary marriage to Christ was not an unusual one. Even wealthy fathers could not always pay the exorbitant dowry rates required for multiple daughters during the 16th century, and Santa Catarina provided a respectable, lifelong warehouse for such girls at a fraction of the dowry cost. These daughters, along with handicapped, ugly, or otherwise unmarriageable women, frequently took their place beside the devout in the convent community with no hope of an alternative future.

Dunant explores the complex social and psychological implications of living in a permanently closed community of women. Although girls possessing an intelligent and strong-headed personality tended to resist assimilation the most, they were the very ones who often benefited from a cloistered society that relied upon them to write, manufacture goods, compose music, balance financial accounts, mix and dispense medicine, and participate in governing a community in the absence of men. The virginal holy sisters lived longer than their secular counterparts, who were subjected to sexual diseases, drunken advances, and serial pregnancies at the whim of their husbands, but they were also doomed to watch their youthful energy and desire slowly evaporate into withered old age without the benefit of children or the happier aspects of conjugal life.

Dunant has filled the book with historical information. The reader learns about Italian city state politics, the delicate dance between the convent and its main benefactors, the forces fueling the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the raucous rituals of Winter Carnival, and much, much more. Dunant's ability to draw the reader into history with specific sensory descriptions makes all of this "learning" delightfully painless. Nuns, giddy with the high spirits of Winter Carnival, toss a shower of dried rose petals over the convent wall onto a gathering of bawdy serenading boys, inciting a near riot (nuns gone wild!); one nun who happens to be the daughter of Santa Catarina's richest benefactor powders her face, lines her nun's habit with colorful, rich silks and tests just how far she can let her newest hairstyle escape her wimple before being chastised; local citizens are titillated when Santa Catarina's annual orchestral concert features wind instruments (the holy sisters grip their lips around the mouthpieces and blow -- shocking!).

The sensory richness of Sacred Hearts combines with a great story line (there's romance and suspense I haven't gotten into) and memorable, complex characters to make an outstanding work of historical fiction. One of my favorite narrators, Rosalyn Landor, is featured in the audio edition of this novel. Her rich, articulate voice pairs perfectly with the tone and mood of the book.

"Little Bee" and the Sting of Awareness

In the opening chapters of Chris Cleaves' gripping second novel, a well-to-do British couple are forced to decide whether or not to engage in the future of a young Nigerian immigrant they met in Africa two years previously under horrific circumstances. Alone, penniless, and lacking legal immigration papers through no fault of her own, Little Bee has traced Sarah and Andrew to their posh home in a London suburb using a plastic driver's license that Andrew dropped during their fatal encounter on a Nigerian beach.

Little Bee's reappearance shakes the couple to their core. They both assumed she was dead, and they've been feverishly attempting to banish "the incident" from their lives, pursuing hectic journalistic careers in hopes that what happened in Africa would stay in Africa. Andrew's post traumatic stress syndrome presents itself in the form of guilt, depression, and self-loathing. For him, Little Bee is a kind of retributive apparition he longs to scrub from his mental landscape. Sarah, however, made an intensely personal investment in Little Bee's welfare that day on the beach two years before, and her altruistic instincts pull her towards further acts of sacrifice for Little Bee even as she realizes that her career, mental health, and ability to mother her own young son may suffer in the bargain.

Sarah's desire to help Little Bee is understandable, for Little Bee is one of the most compelling fictional characters you'll have the fortune to meet this year. Chris Cleave narrates the bulk of the story in Little Bee's voice, and she is utterly charming. Wise beyond her years and yet appealingly naive in her fresh-eyed take on British culture, she exudes the kind of dignified goodness that tempts you to share time with her in hopes that her essential decency and resilience will somehow transfer to your own soul. You'll become as acutely invested in her well being as Sarah, and therein lies the rub. Just as Little Bee's reappearance forced Sarah and Andrew to realize that time and distance couldn't isolate them from the human tragedies that afflict Africa, reading the book Little Bee forces the reader to confront the brutal realities of Africa on a personal level. The death and suffering of thousands is so incomprehensible that the mind refuses to absorb it; the plight of a single sixteen year old Nigerian girl will break your heart.

Cleaves' novel is not unrelentingly dark. Little Bee has a droll sense of humor, and her playful observations about the contrast between African and British culture add light relief to the story. Cleave invites the reader to smile as Little Bee looks back upon her village's annual film festival, one glorious night each year in which the same film -- Top Gun -- was projected on a white sheet in the village square. Since the film was in English, the plot was a mystery to its viewers, but the villagers gazed in wonder at "The Man Who Had To Go Everywhere Very Fast," and spent hours afterward debating why getting everywhere quickly seemed to be so important to the young white boys in the picture. The mental image that Cleave creates in the reader's mind -- laughing villagers reveling in such a simple, repeated pleasure, beautiful in their happiness with so little -- sweeps the reader into caring about the future of these people, and that's simultaneously uplifting and devastating.

I highly recommend this book. I listened to the book on compact disc, and the narrator -- Anne Flosnik -- did an outstanding job. Her measured, elegant evocation of Little Bee's Nigerian-accented English, grammatically perfect and yet bearing the deep, rounded lilt of Africa, was stunning.