Into Silence and Servitude – How American Girls Became Nuns, 1945-1965 by Brian Titley: review

Nuns are in the air. In Alice McDermott’s recently published eighth novel, The Ninth Hour, much of the plot centres on a community of nuns, the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, dedicated to caring for New York’s needy population. Netflix recently had a hit with The Keepers, which explores the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, who taught English and drama at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School, and her former students’ belief that there was a cover-up by authorities after Cesnik suspected that a priest at the school, A Joseph Maskell, was guilty of sexual abuse. And The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book recently made into a riveting TV series, mimics the hierarchical structures of convent life with its dystopian Handmaids, Marthas and Aunts.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/into-silence-and-servitude-how-american-girls-became-nuns-1945-1965-by-brian-titley-review-1.3332703