The Hermits of Big Sur

Absolutely fascinating, gorgeously written, frequently brilliant. In her story of how an ancient monastic order found a home in California, and how the author found a home with them, Paula Huston offers us an invitation into a world that few see, but all will want to experience.

In The Hermits of Big Sur author Paula Huston uses her exceptional literary skills to introduce us to individuals who are hidden to us but who nevertheless pray for us constantly. Deftly, she weaves together the thousand-year history of the Camaldoli order with intimate details of monastic life at Big Sur. Above all Huston shows us the deep Christ-like community these hermits have been able to develop.

Paula Huston’s very readable history of the Camaldolese monastery at Big Sur gives a very clear picture of the challenges faced and overcome in establishing an eremitical monastery on the coast of California. She tells the story by focusing on the people involved, how they discovered monastic life and how the unique experience of each has contributed to the unfolding of the community’s charism. The result is a realistic and very human portrayal of this distinctive chapter of monastic history.

The Hermits of Big Sur is a remarkable book. Meticulous in research and engaging in tone, it explores some of the most significant and turbulent moments in the history of Italy and America through the lens of the thousand-year-old Camaldolese Benedictine order in the mountains of Tuscany, and the order’s sometimes challenging relationship with its young daughter house in California. It is also an affectionate homage to the monks the author has known over the decades of making retreats there, full of her admiration for the life they lead and the wisdom they have shared with so many from their foundation over fifty years ago. More than a fascinating introduction to the rich and complex history of eremitical monasticism, this book is also an invitation to drink from monastic spirituality’s deep life-giving springs.

Like a novel or a family history, with diverse characters ranging from the chemist to the guitarist, Paula Huston tells the story of the Camaldolese hermits of Big Sur. Having co-founded more than one hermitage at the same time as New Camaldoli, I can attest to the authenticity of the hermits’ struggles to survive in the wilderness; live out the age-old tension between solitude, community, and outreach; and after 900 years of harsh monastic practices, weather 'the female invasion' and other humanizing changes from Vatican II in a true spirit of ‘derring-do.’

Paula Huston’s history of the founding of New Camaldoli Hermitage reads like a novel, recounting the tumultuous story of planting the seeds of a thousand-year-old tradition on fresh but wild American soil. Told with obvious love as well as unflagging dedication to research, this work is sure to delight monks and oblates and serve as a warm introduction to the unique spirit of an incredible place on the edge of the continent.

This story of how one monastic community found its place on earth and in the evolving church will certainly appeal to those who already recognize monasteries as spiritual oases. Protestants, people of other faiths, seekers, and skeptics will find in it points of connection with a tradition they may look upon with curiosity and occasional longing for what has been lovingly, quietly preserved by people called to prayer. Any thoughtful reader will appreciate the sheer skill of a storyteller who reaches deep into Catholic history to trace how lives are brought together for purposes that unfold in faith, sometimes among goats and tractors and clueless visitors. Huston offers an intimate glimpse into the complex community life, life-giving humor, and humble wisdom of men who know something about love the rest of us can’t afford to forget.

What an extraordinary gift Paula Huston’s The Hermits of Big Sur has revealed itself to be. Who would have thought a seventy-year history of a Camaldolese monastery that rose in the wilds of the California coast could turn out to be such a page-turner! Paula Huston is a truly gifted writer, as she has proven time after time with her fiction and her essays, and this book is no exception, especially because it has shaped her and in turn can shape us. There’s so much history here—world history, American history, Church history, the major movements from Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin to the opening dialogues between East and West, the aftermath of Vatican II, the worlds of Robinson Jeffers and Henry Miller, hippydom and radical feminism. And at the heart of it all, the need to find that necessary solitude and solace and true companionship which only the interior Mystery at the still point can provide.

This is a wonderfully affectionate and informative look at the holy ground that has been a source of prayer, revelation, and grace for so many.

T.S. Eliot once said of a sacred place: ‘You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid.’ In Paula Huston’s graceful, engrossing narrative history of New Camaldoli, she has given us privileged access to another such place. Even if you can’t go there yourself, this book will enrich your sense of what contemplative prayer and the monastic life offer to every living soul.

This work of modern history, engagingly written, tells the story of a place that in its purpose and use reminds us more of medieval examples.

Informative and fascinating, The Hermits of Big Sur by Paula Huston is a remarkable, unique, and original study that will be of immense and special interest to anyone who has ever contemplated or experienced the monastic life.

Huston uses her impressive skills as a storyteller to bring events and the characters to life. Readers who believe in the Holy Spirit will be moved and astounded at the history of Its seemingly miraculous manifestation in Big Sur, California.

The Hermits of Big Sur is for anyone excited by, repelled by, or has fantasized about fleeing the world to become a hermit. You will find much more life than you accounted for. Highly recommended.

In a time when humanity is facing so many intersecting crises, the wisdom of monastic life offers not only a spiritual but a practical model for cultivating the common good. Huston’s account of New Camaldoli shows us that holiness is a daily effort, difficult and at times obscured by false starts and circuitous routes, that 'requires years of slow, painful un-selfing.' As we watch the hermits of Big Sur move toward greater freedom rooted in self-giving, we find a vision and a template for the 'practice of the privilege of love'—one that, humbly emulated within the particular circumstances of our lives, might be the leaven that restores direction to a hurt and driftless world.

With this splendid book, Huston has articulated how the intention of 'fuga mundi' is to retreat from the world in order to return to the world, bearing rich fruits of the contemplative life. All of us would do well to crave and emulate that.

This book is honest and touching, as well as informative about the Camaldolese three part charism of community, solitude, and outreach. Ultimately, it reveals this community's living and recent examples of what it means to be a monastic, both hermit and cenobitic, monk and pilgrim.

The Hermits of Big Sur tells one of the most interesting and most inspirational true stories to ever develop in American Catholicism. Do not miss it.

A meditative and compelling look at the history of the new Camaldolese Monastery in Big Sur. Many of us have stopped to visit this tranquil retreat but we weren't expecting its story to be un-put-downable.

Readers interested in the contemplative life or American church history will find much to delve into.

With this splendid book, Huston has articulated how fuga mundi retreats-from-the world in order to return to the world bear rich fruits of the contemplative life. All of us would do well to crave and emulate that.