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When reporter Cheryl L. Reed set out to
examine the lives of nuns, she was fulfilling a personal quest,
discovering for herself what was behind the mysterious image
instilled by her Protestant upbringing and reinforced by Hollywood
cliches, misguided speculation, and her Catholic friends'
childhood stories of unyielding figures in black.
For Unveiled, she interviewed
more than 300 nuns of diverse beliefs, lifestyles, and orders. She
lived and prayed with them, observed their daily lives, and
participated in silent worship. She witnessed their vow ceremonies,
mourned with them, celebrated and drank with them. They welcomed
questions no one had ever dared ask before. Reed listened
to their personal stories and candid musings about love and
sex, life and death, faith and joy, loss and regret. In the
end, the nuns Reed had approached with suspicion and curiosity
ended up reaching her more about motherhood, relationships,
and feminism than she ever gleaned from the outside world.
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