Kathleen Norris is one of my favorite spiritual writers. Few books have moved me more than her now-classic memoirs Dakota (about her relationship with her family’s homeland) and The Cloister Walk (my favorite of her books, about her experiences as an oblate at a Benedictine monastery). I also wrote the foreword to her 2024 book with Gareth Higgins on a very different subject: A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality.
Whenever I think about Norris’s writing, I think of the word quiet. Her sentences, paragraphs and chapters, for all their power, verve and energy, never shout. They are quiet, reserved, modest. But they pack a real punch.
Thanks to her books, I’ve also learned a great deal about how to write; in fact, I often use the framework that I first noticed in Dakota with aspiring writers who tell me how daunted they are by the prospect of writing “a whole book.” I’ll often say, “Read Dakota or The Cloister Walk and see what Kathleen Norris does. Essentially, she writes a series of essays and then connects them chronologically or thematically.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to a writer, “You may not be able to write ‘a whole book,’ but you can write 20 essays and link them together.” Of course, I always point out, if you want to write like Kathleen Norris, it also helps to be able to write beautifully. Structure might be teachable, art perhaps less so.
Thus, I was not surprised to find the same method present in her beautiful, moving and often profound new book Rebecca Sue, a kind of double memoir of Norris’s sister, who had suffered from severe mental disabilities, as well of the author herself and her family.
In 1952, Rebecca Sue, Norris’s younger sister, was born with “perinatal hypoxia,” which the author describes as “being deprived of oxygen during a critical time of her birth.” What followed was a lifetime of confusing and often pernicious mental, emotional and physical disabilities. Rebecca Sue is the story of how Becky, as Norris calls her, dealt with these challenges and how Norris and her warm and loving family responded.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. From her writings and from speaking with the author, I knew that Norris had a sister with a disability. And I knew that it required a good deal of her time to care for Becky, especially as their parents aged and ultimately died. I was prepared for a book that described many challenges. What I wasn’t prepared for was Becky’s own vivid character: sometimes angry, sometimes frustrated, often funny (and very blunt) but, most of all, resilient.
One of the most poignant aspects of this book is how clearly Becky understood her condition: “Will I always be slow?” she asks early on. Frequent letters to Norris provide not only a wealth of quotes, but insights into Becky’s mind and soul.
Becky led, it is fair to say, a difficult life, beyond simply her mental and physical challenges. In 1965 the family moved from Hawaii (where their father, a Navy band director, was stationed) to a new posting in Virginia. On the five-day trip, the 13-year-old Becky was sexually molested by a steward. Not until years later was this revealed to her parents (by one of Becky’s psychiatrists). This seems to have contributed to Becky’s fraught relationship with men; sex is a constant topic of conversation between the two sisters. She desperately wants a boyfriend. At one point, Norris describes it as “an obsession.” But Becky also grasps that her limitations work against her finding a romantic partner.
“I know I got to widen my interests and communicate with people,” she writes to Norris. “Can you give me ideas that most people would enjoy doing? I feel like an old maid.” Becky wrote this when she was 22.
Honesty is a constant theme in her letters, and Norris notes that while she occasionally found her sister’s blunt missives and comments stinging, they were far more often refreshing. For her part, Norris shows herself to be a patient and caring sister, even when criticized by Becky. When Dakota is published, Becky writes, “I feel hurt because you wrote a book and I didn’t. Happy for you and I tried to read your book and was bored with it.”
“One great thing about Becky,” writes Norris, “is that she put it all out there…”
Rebecca Sue is as much about Norris and her family as it is about the woman in the title. Over the years, as Becky moves in and out of homes (her often fractious relationships with her roommates is another constant), changes therapists, doctors and medications, and ultimately ages, her family remains faithful to her. Eventually she suffers the loss of both parents and is diagnosed with breast cancer. Her response: “I’ll be fine. I have a positive attitude.”
God is also a constant in this book, and not only for the well-known spiritual writer (that is, Norris). Becky believes in God, prays often, enjoys going to what she calls a “hugging church” and is especially sure that angels are helping her. “Becky held on,” Norris writes. “[S]he had faith that God had something better in store for her.”
The bright rainbow-colored painting that graces the front cover is Becky’s, and it bespeaks joy. Throughout the book, I rejoiced every time Becky had a “success”: a new roommate whom she liked, a cheerful conversation with a boy, praise in a painting class that she is a natural “colorist.”
It is almost impossible to summarize this rich and complex book because it is the story of a person’s entire life, which is at times sad, at times joyful and at times difficult but always, thanks to the deep-down faith of Becky and her family, hopeful. Along the way, the reader also follows the ups and downs of the author’s life.
Describing the book that details Becky’s manifold problems may suggest that I found it sad. But this book is not. It is about real life. And it is deeply inspiring. I learned about love, about siblings, about family and, not incidentally, about pastoral care. One of the most moving exchanges comes toward the end of the book and the end of Becky’s life, when she says to a nurse about her radiation treatment and her illness, “I hate my symptoms.” The nurse replies, “I hate your symptoms too.” That’s a pastoral care course in two sentences.
Thanks not only to Kathleen Norris’s consummate skill as a writer, but also to the many letters that Becky wrote to her family, we are offered a privileged window into the life of one of God’s children, who may have otherwise seemed mysterious and opaque. To understand how people like Becky see and experience the world is enough reason to read this magnificent book. To see how God’s love works through these experiences is an even better reason.
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