Review: A comedian finds her calling, as a nun, in ‘A Change of Habit’

People come to their spiritual beliefs in all kinds of ways — through religious upbringing; as a result of contemplation and prayer; sometimes because of trauma. Sister Monica Clare, an Episcopalian nun, came to hers through want.

Born into violence and poverty in small-town Georgia, she grew up craving routine, peace and (oddly) a uniform. If that’s not a desire for a nun’s life, I don’t know what is. Where was God in her convent dream? God came later. But he did come.

As a child, Sister Monica (born Claudette Powell) was “surrounded by Southern Baptists and Methodists. Catholics were considered an exotic species, and not to be trusted,” she writes in her memoir, “A Change of Habit: Leaving Behind My Husband, Career, and Everything I Owned to Become a Nun.”

But it was Catholicism that she was secretly drawn to from an early age, first through books and movies (“The Nun’s Story,” and “The Sound of Music”) and later through the beauty of the rituals.

“A Change of Habit,” is a curious book — funny, sometimes, but also painful. It provides a fascinating look at life inside a convent and at one woman’s circuitous journey to get there.

After college, Claudette moved to New York and then to Los Angeles, where she worked as a nanny for a movie executive. But childhood damage followed her; she thought her nose too big, her body too fat. She didn’t believe that anyone genuinely liked her.

In California, she became a stand-up comedian and partied with Hollywood stars. But she never relaxed. “I used to drive past the woods around the Hollywood Bowl and think, If I lost my job and I became homeless, I could live in these woods.”

It’s not surprising that when she fell into a romantic relationship it was with a truly horrible man, one who validated the negative things she believed about herself. So, of course, they got married.

In the background, always, was her dream of becoming a nun, which grew into a deep love of God. She keeps her faith secret, noting that “cool people didn’t go to church in L.A.”

Things come together in the book’s second half, when she gets divorced, gets out of debt and visits an Episcopalian convent outside of Newark, N.J. She knows instantly that it’s what she wants. “Everywhere I looked God was there — in the art, in the details, in the history that was all around me,” she writes.

Sister Monica writes with a light touch, and her memoir is a quick, enjoyable read. She has an eye for detail and character — the figures from her early life, as well as the nuns, come alive on the page. She’s less skilled at writing about herself; her introspection rarely goes beyond repeating (over and over) fears that she will be rejected. “Buck up!” you want to tell her. “Clearly, you got this!”

“A Change of Habit” is an entertaining book about one person’s religious journey, and a bumpy road it was. It also is a reminder that finding one’s vocation — and growing past childhood trauma — can take a lifetime.

Laurie Hertzel also reviews books for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Georgia and lives in St. Paul.

A Change of Habit

By: Sister Monica Clare.

Publisher: Crown, 320 pages.