They promised her heaven, but there was no savior.Imagine an eighteen-year-old American girl who has never read a newspaper, watched television, or made a phone call. An eighteen-year-old-girl who has never danced—and this in the 1960s.It is in Cambridge, Massachusetts where Leonard Feeney, a controversial (soon to be excommunicated) Catholic priest, has founded a religious community called the … religious community called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Center’s members—many of them educated at Harvard and Radcliffe—surrender all earthly possessions and aspects of their life, including their children, to him. Patricia Chadwick was one of those children, and Little Sister is her account of growing up in the Feeney sect.
Separated from her parents and forbidden to speak to them, Patricia bristles against the community’s draconian rules, yearning for another life. When, at seventeen, she is banished from the Center, her home, she faces the world alone, without skills, family, or money but empowered with faith and a fierce determination to succeed on her own, which she does, rising eventually to the upper echelons of the world of finance and investing.
A tale of resilience and grace, Little Sister chronicles, in riveting prose, a surreal childhood and does so without rancor or self-pity.
more
4.5 Stars!
Little Sister: A Memoir, is the story of Patricia Walsh Chadwick’s experience growing up in the Feeney Sect. Leonard Feeney, a controversial and eventually excommunicated Catholic priest, founded a religious community which he called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The members of the “Center” were generally well educated men and women (many having been educated at Harvard and Radcliffe) who were compelled to surrender all of their possessions, and in fact their entire lives, to him. Husbands and wives were forced into separate celibate existences, children were isolated from their parents and forbidden to speak to them, and adults were not allowed to discuss their prior lives or contact family members in the outside world. After knowing nothing but the sheltered reality and draconian rules of the Center all her life, Patricia is kicked out at the age of seventeen into a world she can’t begin to understand.
Throughout the book I found myself really yearning to get a sense of the events that were unfolding from Patricia’s parents’ perspective. What did they really think of life at the Center? Of Leonard Feeney and Sister Catherine? How were they able to allow their religious zealotry to not only take precedence over their marriage, but their relationship with their children, and their very status as a family? I was glad to get some of this insight towards the end of the book, although it only left me wanting more.
This book was really fascinating, and at times surreal. Equally intriguing were the stories of Patricia’s life in the sect and the stories of her inevitable stumbles, and ultimate triumphs, in the world beyond the red fence.
Thanks to Suzy Approved Book Tours, Patricia Walsh Chadwick, and Post Hill Press for including me on the tour for this great read!
Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bookcoffeecozy
Linda’s Book Obsession Reviews “Little Sister: A Memoir” by Patricia Walsh Chadwick, Post Hill Press, 2019.
Kudos to Patricia Walsh Chadwick, the author of “Little Sister A Memoir” for writing such a poignant, memorable, and thought-provoking book about her life. The author is certainly a resilient, brave, forgiving, and resourceful person. The author never really refers to her experience as living in a cult or religious sect, but it certainly reads like that and much more.
What astounds me, is that Patricia Walsh Chadwick’s parents and other people that joined this Catholic sect were college-educated and extremely intelligent. As this division of Catholicism broke off and away from the main Church by Leonard Feeney, a controversial and excommunicated priest, and started, strange rules were set. Young children were removed from their parents and didn’t live with them. The parents were encouraged to renounce their marriages. Radios, televisions, and newspapers weren’t allowed. Children could be punished harshly for laughing or talking.
The author often writes about her ambivalent feelings about becoming a Nun. When the choice is out of her hands, and she is asked to leave, she is terrified. I would highly recommend this amazing memoir.
This memoir tells the heart wrenching story of a child trapped in a Catholic cult. Patricia Walsh Chadwick describes the power subversive authority figures can wield over otherwise clear thinkers, creates a universal cautionary tale. Ultimately this is a story of redemption, and a powerful one at that.