Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

After more than twenty years confined behind high walls, Sister Mary Hilary runs away, on impulse, from the strict contemplative convent she entered at the age of seventeen; hits the crowds of London on chaotic Christmas Eve. She has been living in strict silence in the rural depths of Norfolk with just a dozen fellow nuns, has never handled money, never dressed in anything but long medieval robes, yet now she is confronted with superstores and towering blocks, confused by noise and neon, jostled by the rude mob battling home.

She has no home - nor any plans of prospects; has lived for God alone; has lived for God alone; her chief work prayer, her duty to deny and punish self. But can she survive without a self, in a self-regarding world she barely recognises, a greedy, permissive and amoral world, where media hype runs riot, a celibate priest seduces her, and even a Charismatic Conference seems a hotbed of hysteria?

Wendy Perriam takes a sharp look at modern society through the eyes of an innocent outsider, a thirty-nine-year-old adolescent, who knows nothing of life or men, and who - once Christ's Virgin Bride - now gropes towards as yet untasted those of friendship, sensuality and love.

Devils, for a Change is the controversial and profoundly disturbing story of a novice in the world, a woman struggling for identity, who ultimately finds healing in a haunting and unexpected finale. It is told with all the wit, verve and uninhibited sexuality which have made Ms Perriam's name.

'Start reading it at bedtime and you won't put it down until dawn. Buy it - even if you have to mortgage the week's lunch.' She

618 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1990

About the author

Wendy Perriam has been writing since the age of five, completing her first ‘novel’ at eleven. Expelled from boarding school for heresy and told she was in Satan’s power, she escaped to Oxford, where she read History and also trod the boards. After a variety of offbeat jobs, ranging from artist’s model to carnation-disbudder, she now divides her time between teaching and writing. Having begun by writing poetry, she went on to publish 16 novels and 7 short-story collections, acclaimed for their power to disturb, divert and shock. She has also written extensively for newspapers and magazines, and was a regular contributor to radio programmes such as Stop the Week and Fourth Column.

Perriam feels that her many conflicting life experiences – strict convent-school discipline and swinging-sixties wildness, marriage and divorce, infertility and motherhood, 9-to-5 conformity and periodic Bedlam – have helped shape her as a writer. ‘Writing allows for shadow-selves. I’m both the staid conformist matron and the slag; the well-organised author toiling at her desk and the madwoman shrieking in a straitjacket.’

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendy Perriam has expressed the challenges faced by her character Hilary with compassion and a deep understanding.
The story follows Hilary as she negotiates her return to a world she left behind twenty years previously, at a young age. Now in her thirties, Hilary leaves the cloistered life of a Norfolk convent, and discovers a new life full of possibilities and adventures.
As she uncovers this new world, she faces many changes and has to slowly peel off the layers of her former life, to emerge and evolve.
The societal experiences that Hilary faces are shown through her feelings of guilt, religion and in the discovery of her sexuality, as this innocent outsider evolves into the modern world.
A controversial and interesting insight into one woman's journey, 'Devils, for a Change' is a thought provoking and enjoyable read.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this some time ago but remember the story being about an ex-nun. It was very secular and philosophical but quite compulsive reading.