Unfinished Desires (49 page)

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Authors: Gail Godwin

Tags: #Psychological Fiction, #Nineteen fifties, #Nuns, #General, #Psychological, #north carolina, #Teacher-student relationships, #Catholic schools, #Historical, #Women college graduates, #Fiction

BOOK: Unfinished Desires
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G
AIL
G
ODWIN
is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including
A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay, Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband
, and
Evenings at Five
. She is also the author of
The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961–1963
, the first two volumes, edited by Rob Neufeld. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written libretti for ten musical works with the composer Robert Starer. She lives in Woodstock, New York. Visit the author’s website at
www.gailgodwin.com
.

Unfinished Desires
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are the products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Gail Godwin

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Godwin, Gail.
Unfinished desires: a novel / Gail Godwin.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-912-3
1. Catholic schools—Fiction. 2. Women college graduates—Fiction. 3. Nuns—Fiction.
4. Teacher-student relationships—Fiction. 5. North Carolina—Fiction.
6. Nineteen fifties—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.O315R43 2009
813′.54—dc22 2008049320

www.atrandom.com

v3.0

Table of Contents

Prologue A MEMOIR BEGUN

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1 Tour of the Grounds

CHAPTER 2 Uncle

Early Beginnings

CHAPTER 3 Drawing the Dead

Registration Days at Mount St. Gabriel’s

CHAPTER 4 Switching Friends

CHAPTER 5 Mother Malloy’s Ninth Grade, 1951

The morning interviews
Noon—the hour of Sext—the Angelus
The afternoon interviews
Mother Malloy’s Ninth Grade, 1951

CHAPTER 6 The Afterrunner

CHAPTER 7 The Swag

Evening, Tildy’s birthday The Swag
Early Beginnings, Continued

CHAPTER 8 The Pungent Ache of the Soul

CHAPTER 9 Nuns’ Dormitory

Ignatian Examen of Conscience

CHAPTER 10 Madeline

CHAPTER 11 Sister Bridgets Chore List

Holy Daring: A Predawn Digression

CHAPTER 12 Girls’ Voices Upstairs

CHAPTER 13 All Souls

CHAPTER 14 More Indignities

Holy Daring: A Noonday Digression

CHAPTER 15 Tildy Struggles

PART TWO

CHAPTER 16 The Christmas Critic

CHAPTER 17 Shadows on an Outing

CHAPTER 18 Two Nuns on a Walk

A Confessional Cassette

CHAPTER 19 Unmerited Degradation

CHAPTER 20 Grading Papers

CHAPTER 21 Realignments

Monday afternoon The Stratton house

CHAPTER 22 An Errand for Agnes

CHAPTER 23 Agnes at Rest

CHAPTER 24 Trigonometry Midterm

CHAPTER 25 Silent Skies

Two nuns setting off for a walk

CHAPTER 26 Henry

CHAPTER 27 Auteur/Directeur

CHAPTER 28 Revising the Dead

CHAPTER 29 A Letter

CHAPTER 30 Dire Alternatives

CHAPTER 31 The Play

CHAPTER 32 Act Two

CHAPTER 33 Aftermath

CHAPTER 34 Sister Bridgets Heart

Confessional Cassette Rerouted

CHAPTER 35 A Midmorning Walk

CHAPTER 36 Reunion MAUD

CHAPTER 37 Reunion, Continued TILDY

CHAPTER 38 A Correspondence

CHAPTER 39 The Chapel of Secrets

Acknowledgments

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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