The Seven Storey Mountain

From the publisher: "The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders—the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, 'the four walls of my new freedom,' Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it."