An infinity of little hours - Nancy Maguire

In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of
Parkminster, the largest center of the most rigorous and
ascetic monastic order in the Western world: the
Carthusians. This is the story of their five-year journey
into a society virtually unchanged in its behavior and
lifestyle since its foundation in 1084.
An Infinity of Little Hours is a uniquely intimate portrait
of the customs and practices of a monastic order
almost entirely unknown until now. It is also a drama of
the men's struggle as they avoid the 1960s?the decade of
hedonism, music, fashion, and amorality?and enter an
entirely different era and a spiritual world of their own
making. After five years each must face a choice: to make
"solemn profession" and never leave Parkminster; or to
turn his back on his life's ambition to find God in solitude.
A remarkable investigative work, the book combines
first-hand testimony with unique source material to
describe the Carthusian life. And in the final chapter,
which recounts a reunion forty years after the events
described elsewhere in the book, Nancy Klein Maguire
reveals which of the five succeeded in their quest, and
which did not.