ORDINARY DEVOTION

In Holt-Browning’s debut novel, a medieval teen and a contemporary scholar lead parallel lives.

Wenfair Abbey, England, 1370: After the death of her mother, 12-year-old Elinor is sent to serve Lady Adela, an anchoress who, for the past four years, has been sealed in a bricked-up cell within the walls of the abbey (an anchoress is willingly and permanently isolated in such a chamber to pursue a solitary life of prayer and mortification). “It is morning and the sun must be risen high, but it is like night in here,” writes Elinor of her new home, which she sees more as a prison than a place of God. At first, it seems to Elinor that Lady Adela does nothing but pray, but she soon learns that the women of the village visit her at night to ask for help with a very specific problem. Stillburne, New York, 2017: Liz Pace works as an adjunct professor of medieval studies at the local college. She’s hoping to expand her dissertation on purgatory into a book, which could lead to a tenure-track position, but a miscarriage throws her life off balance. Hoping to expand her study to include anchoresses, she takes a researching trip to England, where she finds an old book of hours—one that seems to connect to the mysterious Adela and Elinor of Wenfair Abbey. The narration alternates fluidly between Elinor and Liz, whose shared interest in the psychological state of the anchoress keeps the short chapters all moving in the same direction. Holt-Browning is a talented storyteller, summoning the dreary world of 14th-century England in vivid sensorial detail. Here, Elinor is embarrassed to have to pass chamber pots through the window to an assisting monk: “I was ready to empty our pots myself, but I was not prepared to hand them to a man, practically a stranger. And certainly not to Brother Joseph. I blush to think of his kind eyes again—which I did not expect to meet over a chamber pot.” The plot offers no big twists and few moments of high drama, but the novel is an enjoyable read nonetheless, illuminating a peculiar corner of historical religiosity for a wider audience.

A richly drawn story of religious and scholastic devotion.