The Nun

Simonetta Agnello Hornby, Anthony Shugaar

• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781609450625
• eBook ISBN: 9781609459109
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Narrativa storica

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

Table of contents

• CHARACTERS OF THE NOVEL
• 1. Messina, August 15, 1839. The reception at the Padellani home for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• 2. During the procession Agata Padellani has a secret meeting with her inamorato, Giacomo Lepre
• 3. The earthquake and the illness of Field Marshal Padellani
• 4. September 17, 1839. Birth of an infant prince and death of the field marshal Padellani. During the crossing to Naples, Agata confides in Captain James Garson
• 5. Autumn in Naples. The scathing humiliations of poor relations. Agata can’t understand what her mother wants from her
• 6. Winter 1840. The last months of hope
• 7. Preparations for the wedding of Anna Carolina Padellani; Agata instead receives a tray of pastries from her aunt the abbess
• 8. April 20, 1840. Reluctantly, Agata goes to visit the convent of San Giorgio Stilita
• 9. The wedding of Anna Carolina Padellani and Fidenzio Carnevale
• 10. May 11th, 1840. Agata enters the convent of San Giorgio Stilita
• 11. The grueling two months of probation
• 12. Two sisters-in-law discuss what to do about their niece’s unhappiness
• 13. End of August 1840. The betrayal of Donna Gesuela Padellani
• 14. After the miracle of the Madonna dell’Utria, Agata denies her vocation, falls ill, offends the cardinal, and finally leaves for her Aunt Orsola Padellani’s house
• 15. Agata discovers that her mother wants to marry her off to another man and decides to go back to the convent
• 16. Donna Gesuela Padellani arrives in Naples to remove Agata from the convent but she refuses to leave
• 17. The vestition of Agata the educand
• 18. The educandate of Agata
• 19. Agata thinks about love while kneading bread dough
• 20. April 1841. Agata comes to know her father through the stories told her by her aunt the abbess and she develops a bond with her
• 21. October 1842. Agata the postulant becomes an assistant pharmacist
• 22. January 1844. Agata is certain that she prefers nunhood to the marriage her mother wants for her
• 23. November 1844. Agata, captivated by the novels that James sends her, wants something else, something more, doubts whether she has the vocation, and has a talk with the cardinal
• 24. April 1845. On the verge of her simple profession, Agata withdraws but then gives in
• 25. Agata spends the last two weeks with her family before beginning her cloistered life and she encounters James
• 26. June 18th, 1845. The simple profession
• 27. June 18th, 1846. The solemn profession
• 28. The daily life of Donna Maria Ninfa, new chorister nun
• 29. September 1846. Agata believes she can overcome the murkiest aspects of the cloistered life by taking on the office of sister infirmarian
• 30. January 1847. The death of her aunt the abbess, the death of Donna Maria Celeste, and the death of the cook Brida
• 31. February 1847. Angiola Maria and Checchina, lay sisters of the Padellani nuns, run away from the convent of San Giorgio Stilita and there are murmurings against Agata
• 32. The new abbess is opposed to Agata; the cardinal denies her brevi
• 33. April 1847. Agata is not well loved at the convent and does everything within her power to leave the cloistered life
• 34. May 1847. The cardinal learns that someone tried to hurt Agata and he removes her from the convent of San Giorgio Stilita
• 35. June 1847. At the conservatory of Smirne. Agata can leave and walk around Naples; she receives a letter from James
• 36. July 1847. The doorkeeper of the conservatory of Smirne refuses to admit Agata, who has returned late
• 37. August-October 1847. The terrible punishment for Agata in love: isolation
• 38. October 1847. Agata heals the abbess and obtains privileges; suddenly, the cardinal sends her to Sicily
• 39. In Palermo at her mother’s house
• 40. January 1848. Agata leaves Palermo on the cardinal’s orders
• 41. In Chiana, in the Benedictine convent of the Santissismo Sacramento
• 42. The long journey to reach her beloved
• 43. The ship docks at Naples and Agata is abducted by an unknown woman
• 44. In the Garden of Minerva, in Salerno
• 45. April 1848. Checchina is left alone
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR