The Cloister

January 29, 2018
Carroll’s latest novel (after Warburg in Rome) is a sweeping, heartbreaking blend of history and fiction. In 1142 in the Duchy of Bourgogne, the aging Abbess Héloïse finds the dead body of her former lover, Peter Abelard. This story line is woven together with the 1950 story of Father Michael Kavanagh, a New York priest, and Rachel Vedette, a museum docent. They meet when he takes shelter from a rainstorm in the Cloisters at the top of Manhattan, where Rachel works. Over multiple meetings, the two build a rapport; back in the 12th century, Peter and Héloïse’s love story unfolds. Rachel and Michael are both haunted by people from their pasts—her now-dead father, whose life’s work was an unfinished book on Abelard, and his lost friend from seminary. As Michael discovers his friend’s secrets and Rachel deals with her complicated feelings about her father, Héloïse and Peter’s troubles escalate. The entwined stories move at an engrossing rhythm, making this a very magnetic, satisfying novel.

The true love story of Abelard and Heloise has a significant impact on the lives of Father Michael Kavanagh and Rachel Vedette, a Jewish woman, in this audiobook written and narrated by author James Carroll. Carroll's voice is solemn and temperate, and his delivery is slow yet perfectly paced for this engrossing novel. Father Michael meets Rachel in The Cloisters, where she has retreated after her experience in France during the Holocaust. She reveals to him how her father once studied the connection between Abelard and Jewish scholars. Carroll's precise yet relaxed delivery helps the listener absorb his words. Because of Abelard and Heloise, both of the modern characters grow to understand more about themselves. D.Z. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine