Two nuns, and one obsessed mother, doing everything thing in their power to achieve communion with the one they love. Sister Lugarda de la Encarnación takes the lash, and an unnamed mother gets down on her hands and knees—sacramental postures demanded by inscrutable men. Apparitions is a novel of ecstasy pursued, desire transmogrified into devotion, and obedience as a passionately pursued, not entirely free choice. Erotic, and suffused with painting, music, art, it’s an incantatory exploration of what it means to abandon the world, and to use your body—in pain, and in pleasure—as a way of finally coming to know the divine.