Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

Friday, Mar. 6, 2026--San Antonio

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was named a top book of the year by many notable publications.  It's a fascinating novel--different from most I have read recently.  The central character (unnamed) is a woman who grew up in a desolate part of Australia, left to become and environmentalist and conservationist, and has become disillusioned by the failures to preserve all aspects of life and the planet itself.  In the first few pages, she is returning home after 30 years away to visit her parents' graves.  While there, she ends up spending a few days of respite in a cabin at a monastery which has a church (not a chapel, because it was consecrated as a church in the past) and has only a few nuns living there (no priest).  It's a place for a quiet (not a silent) retreat.  Meals are basic and the nuns work to maintain the place while raising a garden and some animals.  Plus, the nuns have multiple services a day in the church (before breakfast, after breakfast, midday, and vespers in the evening) at which attendance is allowed.  They are the only things for a visitor "to do" other than reading, sleeping or wandering.  At the beginning, she even avoids sharing mealtime with the nuns; she just takes products from the pantry that she can use to feed herself in her room.  At the end of her 5 days, she heads back to Sydney.  But in the next chapter, a few years have passed, she has left her husband, she has left your job in conservation, and she is back at the monastery and is a permanent resident living and working with the nuns.  The rest of the novel is almost like a memoir.   She recalls friends from school and what they were like, her mother and father and what they were like, one student in particular who was aggressive and unapologetic, etc., while interacting with the nuns and with a former male classmate who volunteers regularly to assist the nuns when needed.  She never develops an interest in leaving the place even when the woman who was the aggressive, apologetic student returns as a nun bringing back the bones of a former nun who, years ago, left the monastery to run an assistance program in Asia and then disappeared.  Instead, her mind continues contemplating the past and dealing with the frustrations that she has with the returned nun and even occasionally with the nuns she lives with.  There is no "end to the story" other than the she is still there when the nun, who brought the bones at the beginning of COVID and has had to remain for about 2 years waiting for flights resume, finally can depart.  The unnamed central character doesn't.  She seems destined to be there for the rest of her life.  I gave the book a rating of 4 stars out of 5.