IF YOU have ever wondered exactly what goes on behind the austere walls of a monastery — what kind of men find it possible to exist that way — how they acquire that mien of inner serenity you so wish would off a little on you — whether they are really human or part angel — and why, above all, any normal young man would want to become a monk — this book is for you.

Men in Sandals is a wonderfully witty, book-length answer to all your questions about the men whose lives are one endless succession of long silences, little sleep, willing work and knee-denting prayer, fasting, abstinence, poverty, obedience, loneliness, and fish — yes, lots of it, even on Thanksgiving!

For each of these men a small cell is their only worldly domain, a barren cubicle where breezes refuse to stir, even spiders scorn to dwell, and the simple plank-board bed has a devilish habit of slipping of its wooden horse supports in the middle of the night.

Father Madden, the young Discalced Carmelite of Holy Hill, Wisconsin, knows fully the hardships and rewards of the life he describes. His book is no heavy analysis of monastic sanctity, no searching study of spirituality, nor is it Carmelite "literature" in the tradition of St. Teresa of Avila or St. John of the Cross. It is simply a fresh, honest, and disarmingly humorous account of modern monasticism showing that "although people are interesting, Discalced Carmelites are more interesting than people."

Novitiate days, student days, the priesthood — all are covered as Father Madden pours many of his own reactions and experiences into the brimming cup of cloistered heroism everywhere so that the lay reader may taste a most refreshing potion.

Wryly he recalls the initial spurt of enthusiasm that sustains a beginner during his first day in the novitiate and the stark letdown that comes the next morning when a noisy clapper shatters the predawn darkness to summon him from his bed of prayer.

Entertainingly he discloses the ways in which a novice learns to be a man of few words as he submits to monastic silence; strives to be a contemplative as he cultivates habits of mental prayer; becomes a lover of the chant and the Divine Office as he masters the use of the Breviary, even though it "possesses a strange faculty for adding weight to itself while being held at one o'clock in the morning."

He describes how a man becomes an "ascetic," resigning himself to a meatless diet, and answers once and for all the questions that hounds all monks: "Don't your feet get cold?" as he pictures the airy "comfort" of leather straps and Neolite soles slapped together with stoic disregard for fit in the monastery's own shoe shop.

There's a bit of impish teasing here and there in Father Madden's account of certain monastic hazards such as the haircuts given by rank amateurs in the monastery's dimly lit, archaic barber shop. (Not enough barbers become monks, so an awful lot of monks must become barbers, he concludes philosophically.)

There's a great deal to chuckle about in this lighthearted book, but underlying all the fresh, youthful, American style and faintly ironic humor, is a serious message. You'll find that Men in Sandals will spur you spiritually and help you understand this unusual way of life, lived to the fullest, by average men who pray in the long midnight and bleak morning hours for all mankind.

From the dust jacket