Sad Nun at Synanon

Sad Nun at Synanon

Sister Barbara Leslie Austin was only twenty two when she volunteered to teach for a summer at Synanon, a rehabilitation center for drug addicts where "cure" comes with total human contact-- with yourself, through others. Barbara thought she was there "to do good," but the convent had not prepared her for the violence, obscenity, and hostility to religion-- especially the idea idea of consecrated virginity--that she encountered. Sister Barbara was a poet, a girl who loved seashells and clouds--and privacy. At Synanon they called her Sister Asshole. Sad Nun at Synanon is the story of what she learned from Fran, the whore; Mike, the ex-movieland PR man; John, the brilliant alcoholic doctor; Matt, the talented defeated black; Kent, the poor little rich boy whose daddy bought him off; and from the young girl who killed her own child. The climax comes with a Trip, where for forty-eight hours people are confined together to vent their hostility, relive their sins, and crack crusts of defenses we call ourselves, contacting each other finally in order to forgive and be forgiven. The people of Synanon are shrewdly and memorably sketched, but most of all the reader gets to know Barbara herself: a vulnerable and generous girl who matures before our eyes, delights in the sudden discovery of her body, and looks forward to a limitless horizon of new challenges. Sad Nun at Synanon is more than book; it's a soul-bath we all have to take before we can say we're alive.