Stone Yard Devotional - by Charlotte Wood (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.

But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.

Meditative, moving, and finely observed, Stone Yard Devotional is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power, exploring what it means to retreat from the world, the true nature of forgiveness, and the sustained effect of grief on the human soul.

Review Quotes

"Stone Yard Devotional is about one woman's inward journey to make sense of the world and her life when conflicts and chaos are abundant in both realms. . . A fierce and philosophical interrogation of history, memory, nature, and human existence." --Booker Prize judges' remarks

"I have rarely been so absorbed by a novel . . . A powerful, generous book." --Guardian

"A book about what it means to be good: simply and with great humility, it asks the big questions, leaving the reader feeling kinder, more brave, enlarged." --Anne Enright

"A novel of austere contemplation and personal devastation, its narrative driven by moral crisis rather than worldly action .... reflections on mortality seep into its fabric. For this is not a book of answers. Rather, it is a challenge: about how to be in the world, and how to be alone."--Times Literary Supplement

"A beautiful, mature work that does not flinch from life." --Sunday Times

"Wood threads a contemplative path for believers and nonbelievers alike. Reading her prose--sanded to deceptive simplicity--feels like spending time with a dear friend. What if attentiveness and "habitual kindness," the narrator seems to ask, are bedrocks of a moral life? A wise, consoling novel for disquieting times." - Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW)

About the Author