The Red Skirt: Memoirs of an Ex Nun

Just out of high school, O'Donnell-Gibson was received as a postulant to the Roman Catholic Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., moving from a sheltered suburban childhood to the equally sheltered campus of Siena Heights University. Thoug the distance in miles was short, the convent might have been located in another universe. Having been raised in a devout Roman Catholic family and educated at a strict girls-only school, she nevertheless experienced a painful transition to religious life in the early 1960s. In this troubling coming-of-age memoir, O'Donnell-Gibson describes surreal, identity-erasing spiritual processing: nuns censoring her mail, searching her belongings, chaperoning her on family visits, giving ambiguous but dire warnings about sex. O'Donnell-Gibson is an adroit writer; her accounts of being terrified to turn her back on God and moved to rapture while singing psalms, for example, will keep readers committed to her story as she travels from the convent to Joliet, Ill., where she taught at a Roman Catholic elementary school. Given her own room, more freedom, and students to worry about, in 1968 she chose the "red skirt" (a symbol of worldly abandon), gave notice, and rode off into the night%E2%80%94and secular society%E2%80%94in her sister's Karmann Ghia. Despite many touching reflections, her insights rarely plumb the deepest levels, suggesting that she has not fully digested her past.