An Infinity of Little Hours
Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith

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.
Maguire's book is also superbly understated, but clings to the reader's thoughts like the scent of incense.
                                                                                                                               - Chicago Tribune

About Nancy Klein Maguire

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 An English teacher at the high school and university level for 13 years, Nancy Klein Maguire turned to history while working as a researcher at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Her first two books explored the literature of Renaissance England within their political context. First editing Renaissance Tragicomedy: Explorations in Genre and Politics, she then completed Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660-1671 in 1992. 

In 2006 she authored her first trade book An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order, a unique glimpse into the most austere Monastery in the Western World. According to XXX, “What Maguire set herself to do, and she does it brilliantly, is to re-create the Carthusian experience.”
Picture
​Her next book, a Monk's Widow, is set for release in 2021. It chronicles her xx year marriage to David Maguire, one of the monks chronicled in Infinity of Little Hours, and his subsequent death to cancer. Monk's Widow is a brutally honest and uniquely intimate portrait of loss, grief, and fear of the unknown.

Nancy Klein Maguire lives in Washington, DC and southwestern Virginia. She has been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, since 1983.

An Infinity of Little Hours
Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith

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.
Maguire's book is also superbly understated, but clings to the reader's thoughts like the scent of incense.
                                                                                                                               - Chicago Tribune

About Nancy Klein Maguire

Picture
 An English teacher at the high school and university level for 13 years, Nancy Klein Maguire turned to history while working as a researcher at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Her first two books explored the literature of Renaissance England within their political context. First editing Renaissance Tragicomedy: Explorations in Genre and Politics, she then completed Regicide and Restoration: English Tragicomedy, 1660-1671 in 1992. 

In 2006 she authored her first trade book An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order, a unique glimpse into the most austere Monastery in the Western World. According to XXX, “What Maguire set herself to do, and she does it brilliantly, is to re-create the Carthusian experience.”
Picture
​Her next book, a Monk's Widow, is set for release in 2021. It chronicles her xx year marriage to David Maguire, one of the monks chronicled in Infinity of Little Hours, and his subsequent death to cancer. Monk's Widow is a brutally honest and uniquely intimate portrait of loss, grief, and fear of the unknown.

Nancy Klein Maguire lives in Washington, DC and southwestern Virginia. She has been a Scholar-in-Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, since 1983.