It seems the Catholic contemplatives have been experiencing a renaissance -- Hildegaard von Bingen is selling millions of CDs; people are reading the mystical poets. What do you think it is about these characters that speak across the centuries to people who don't even hold their beliefs?

I think it's because the mystical traditions deal with doubt more than a lot of other religious people. It's true of Thomas More and St. John of the Cross, and true of the contemplatives in general. They put the struggle with doubt right in the forefront of religious experience. They say that it's when you think you know God that you're farthest from knowing him.

We live in an age when certainty is passed off as spirituality -- like the fundamentalists who are so sure of their beliefs -- and what I love about the contemplatives is that they are willing to acknowledge their doubt.

One of my favorite moments came when I was talking to a Carmelite nun and I asked her what she struggled with most and she said: "Doubt as to God's existence. Every day we're searching for God -- you have to confront that you have doubts."

So it appeals to those of us that think we don't know the answer.

How did you research the book?

The neurology side was much easier and that was a lot of fun. I read essays and talked to neurologists. Learning about the religious side was much more difficult. Of course I did all the reading, but it took several years to meet with a Carmelite nun. There was one person -- a prioress in New Mexico -- who took a real interest in the book. As the friendship developed between us, I had a human model of what a cloistered nun might be like.

What were your conversations with her like?

We sat in a parlor on either side of a barred window. What surprised me was how much fun the conversations were and what a great conversationalist she was. I pictured someone who wasn't used to talking and was nervous or awkward but it couldn't have been farther from that.

Unlike the nuns in the teaching orders who experience a lot of tension between their religious ideals and the outside world -- the stereotyped strict nun -- I think the cloistered nuns seem more relaxed because they have both feet in the cloistered world.

The prioress asked me, "Are you Catholic? Are you religious?" and I said no, and I thought that she would say, Well, we feel uncomfortable about you writing about this. But instead she said that's not a problem at all.

How did you find them?

It's kind of a wonderful story. I was having trouble finding any Carmelite nuns -- I got an address of an abbot in New Mexico and he invited me to visit his monastery. [While I was there] I took a walk and I found a road that had a sign for a Carmelite monastery. I decided to walk down the road to the monastery and knock on the door.

And a voice answered: "Praised be Jesus Christ, may I help you." I explained that I was writing a novel and wanted to talk to a nun. She invited me to go into this little parlor. And she drew back the curtain to look at me and said, "I thought a novelist would be older."

The book takes place in the present in Los Angeles rather than 16th century Europe. Was this based on some factual Carmelite mission?

No, but it's surprising: There are often cloisters tucked away in cities ... And interestingly enough there are more young people interested in cloistered orders right now than the so-called modern orders.

Did your own vision of religion and religious people change in writing the book?

Absolutely. I'd always felt that there was a real gulf between those who were religious and those who weren't. People who devoted themselves to a faith -- it was always so foreign to me, I couldn't grasp it. But through the crisis that I had in failing to write the book, I realized that there was a connection between my faith in art and their faith in God. I take it on faith that art is worthwhile and that it's good for the world. But it's not rational. My own struggle to maintain faith in my writing is the same process so it gave me a sense of kinship with these people. It's so much more familiar to me now.

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