The Beauty of Ordinary Things — Harriet Scott Chessman

Back from a tour of duty in Vietnam, Benny Finn strives to find his bearings amid the everyday life of 1973 New England. At a Benedictine Abbey in rural New Hampshire, Sister Clare, a young novice, confronts the day-to-day realities of a cloistered existence. Linking the stories of Benny and Sister Clare is Isabel Howell, a college student soon to discover that she must chart the course of her own life in a way she could not have imagined. Deeply felt and often luminously moving, this powerful story reveals a writer richly aware of the range of human tragedy and tenderness.