Introduction

(The heartrending story of the forbidden love between a nun and a priest-by a writer who illuminates the details of everyday life, from the quiet rhythms of the cloister to the exuberant sensuality of the Amalfi Coast

When her family moves to Puerto Rico in the early 1950s, thirteen-year-old Beryl Bissell enters a milieu heady with sexuality and passion. Uncomfortable in her developing body and yearning for unconditional love, she becomes convinced that only God can satisfy her longing. On the day following her eighteenth birthday, she enters a cloistered convent in New Jersey, believing that God has called her to this way of life.

At first, she is blissfully happy. Within the year, however, she has become anorectic and prey to other obsessive compulsions. Her vocation at risk, she overcomes these disorders and perseveres for another ten years, until she must return home to Puerto Rico to help care for her ailing father.

Thrust once more into the sensual world of Puerto Rico, she discovers that religious garb cannot protect her from her budding sexuality. She is drawn to Padre Vittorio, a handsome Italian priest, and undergoes a belated coming of age. For the next three years, as she travels to and from the island, she struggles to reconcile human desire with spiritual longing. Unable to confide in either her mother or abbess, she tries to find the inner freedom that would allow her to love fully. The events that follow take the reader on a dizzying journey into the heart of desire, both spiritual and human.

In spare but lyric language, Bissell weaves a powerful story of love, death, guilt, and redemption-a pilgrimage that reaches beyond dogma to personal truth and evokes a transformation that changes not only herself, but the lives of those whom she loves most.

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Excerpt

This is the opening sequence of chapter 16 and takes place when, 12 years after I entered the monastery, my abbess sends me home to Puerto Rico to help care for my father--a journey that will transform my life.

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When I think again of those days, of the excitement that spiraled continuously within me, I feel the hot sun beating down, the raindrop rustle of the palm trees, the whispered flattery of the men. But most of all, I remember the freedom.

I woke that first morning to the sound of waves crashing on the beach below, the pink and gold of the rising sun playing across my face. Despite my father’s condition and my mother’s frailty, I felt a wild surge of happiness. Eight floors below my window, a receding wave shimmered backward to an oncoming breaker, leaving a froth of bubbles to mark the edges of its ride. A solitary man jogged along the beach, the wet sand forming silvery halos around his footprints.

The sound of the waves and the beauty of the morning scene filled me with the urge to leave the apartment, to rush out into the morning and onto the street as I hadn’t been able to do in twelve years. I smile at this memory now, for having spent many years since then walking city streets and fighting their traffic from behind the wheel of a car, I find it strange that I should have once thought streets so thrilling. But that morning—filled with the anticipation of setting off into the world after years of voluntary seclusion—I could hardly wait.

I didn’t know what time Mass started but decided to go anyway. I could pray while waiting if I was early. I dressed quickly, unlocked the front grate, and slipped into the foyer, deciding to forgo the elevator and take the stairs. I clattered down the eight flights taking great skipping leaps, my habit billowing around me. Once outside the building, I felt like the gulls soaring above me—free, free, free they seemed to cry—and that freedom coursed through me as the familiar ocean breeze pushed me toward the street and lifted my veil. Leaving Ashford with its towering condominiums, I turned onto the smaller streets where charming stucco homes slumbered in the dawn and red and yellow hibiscus waited for the morning sun to prod them into scalloped wheels of color.

I was not the first to arrive at the parish church of San Jorge that morning, several women were there already. They knelt close to the altar, their mantilla-covered heads bowed, their rosary beads slipping like shining fish through their fingers. I knelt behind them where their murmured prayers would be less likely to distract me and opened my breviary to recite Matins and Lauds. I lost myself in the familiar words and ancient rhythms of the psalms, allowed myself to be carried to the internal place of quiet I so loved. I was still praying when the rustle of people standing reminded me that I had come for Mass.

A priest of medium build, with a shock of hair so thick and black it looked unreal, strode onto the altar with the flair of an actor. He insisted on singing even though there were only a handful of old ladies and myself to join in, challenging us to “sing, sing!” his ringing tenor voice showing us how and encouraging the old ladies’ hesitant notes as his hands marked the time. This priest filled me with contrary feelings. I found his motions embarrassing because they were so theatrical, yet his voice enchanted me. I judged him unkempt because his cassock was frayed and his hair windblown and messy. Yet I found his presence compelling. I was drawn and repulsed simultaneously. The combination troubled me. I knew this man would shake up my life and I set myself against him.

Why do you think the author wanted to tell this story?

What does the title The Scent of God mean to you as a reader? Do you think this is an appropriate title for this book?

Were there sections of the story that had special impact on you and, if so, what were they and why did they affect you?

In the book, the author mentions four events as triggering her desire to become a nun: the death of the young boy on the beach, the dream after the school retreat, her mother’s intervention in her social life, the illness that triggered her promise to God. Why do you suppose these episodes affected her as they did? Were there other reasons why she would have chosen such a life? Do you think they were valid indicators of such a choice?

The author reveals the delight with which she entered the monastery and the gradual diminishment of this joy as she became anorexic. Do you think it was religious life that triggered her anorexia or might she have encountered similar compulsions had she stayed in the world?

The author reveals herself as immature both spiritually and emotionally – a seventeen-year-old in a thirty-year-old woman. Did you understand that this was “her” story or did you draw the conclusion that most nuns are immature in this way?

What is your impression of cloistered life as presented by the author? Do you think it is a valid way of life in today’s world? Do you relate to her experiences there or did they leave you feeling “outside” the realm of her experience?

Why do you think the author told this story as memoir rather than taking it into fiction? Do you think it could have been better told as fiction?

What did the author learn about her family from the years she spent going back and forth to Puerto Rico? How did her relationship with her parents change?

What were your reactions to the author’s recognition of her sexuality? Of her growing attraction to Padre Vittorio? Do you think she could have or should have made other choices?

Did you have any perceptions about priests and nuns prior to reading this book and, if so, did they change after reading this story? What are your insights into the issue of celibacy and religious life?

Would a reader need to believe in God or to be a Christian to read and enjoy this story? view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

Why do you think the author wanted to tell this story?

What does the title The Scent of God mean to you as a reader? Do you think this is an appropriate title for this book?

Were there sections of the story that had special impact on you and, if so, what were they and why did they affect you?

In the book, the author mentions four events as triggering her desire to become a nun: the death of the young boy on the beach, the dream after the school retreat, her mother’s intervention in her social life, the illness that triggered her promise to God. Why do you suppose these episodes affected her as they did? Were there other reasons why she would have chosen such a life? Do you think they were valid indicators of such a choice?

The author reveals the delight with which she entered the monastery and the gradual diminishment of this joy as she became anorexic. Do you think it was religious life that triggered her anorexia or might she have encountered similar compulsions had she stayed in the world?

The author reveals herself as immature both spiritually and emotionally – a seventeen-year-old in a thirty-year-old woman. Did you understand that this was “her” story or did you draw the conclusion that most nuns are immature in this way?

What is your impression of cloistered life as presented by the author? Do you think it is a valid way of life in today’s world? Do you relate to her experiences there or did they leave you feeling “outside” the realm of her experience?

Why do you think the author told this story as memoir rather than taking it into fiction? Do you think it could have been better told as fiction?

What did the author learn about her family from the years she spent going back and forth to Puerto Rico? How did her relationship with her parents change?

What were your reactions to the author’s recognition of her sexuality? Of her growing attraction to Padre Vittorio? Do you think she could have or should have made other choices?

Did you have any perceptions about priests and nuns prior to reading this book and, if so, did they change after reading this story? What are your insights into the issue of celibacy and religious life?

Would a reader need to believe in God or to be a Christian to read and enjoy this story?

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