When seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Byrne enters the convent in the shadow of World War II, she's driven by faith, a desire to be of service like her soldier older brother, and perhaps a bit of fear of the real world that was looming after high school. Two years later, after her time in a St. Louis novitiate, Sister Elizabeth Mary is turned loose-with no training, not even a basic college education-to teach seventy-two third- and fourth-graders in one room. Thus begins her education in the real world of patriarchal American Catholic life as the post-war baby boom heats up and nuns are the unpaid labor to educate thousands of children. New Art follows Byrne from her idealistic youth through the turbulence of the late 1960s, including upheaval in the Catholic church, when the foundation she has built her life upon becomes shaky, and she must find a way to forge a new life for herself. This debut novel is a tribute to female friendship, faith, and the powerful spirit of community.
