From Publishers Weekly: <br>Starred Review: With a family history of untimely death and madness, Saldaña easily took to a career of danger journalism, reporting from risky locales. In a deliberate attempt to stop courting danger, Saldaña attempted a normal life at Harvard Divinity School. When the love affair that had provided her a sense of normalcy ended, she opted to take the Fulbright scholarship she had won to study the Muslim Jesus in Damascus, arriving in Syria in 2004 amid the post-9/11 war in Iraq. The tension of American foreign policy and Saldaña’s own vivid memories of death and destruction witnessed during her reporting life earlier in the Middle East haunted her, particularly when she embarked upon the Catholic rite of spiritual exercises at the Syrian desert monastery of Mar Musa. In lovely prose and with elements of foreshadowing, Saldaña shares her struggles to become religious again and overcome feelings that God has ab