The narrator is an unnamed, middle aged woman, who after taking a short retreat at a run down convent in her home country of Australia, returns there and never goes home. Three 'visitations' that occur shape the story.

I expected this to be more about solitude than it was, which maybe lost it half a star (bit too much about the visitation of mice - relentless), but I still found moments of her self-exploration quietly deep.

Certainly a writer whose back catalogue I will visit. ( )

I could be wrong, but I think Stone Yard Devotional will test the loyalty of some of Charlotte Wood's more recent fans. I found it compulsive reading, and read on through the night, but though the preoccupation with human frailty in Stone Yard Devotional is there in her earlier work too, this novel is a departure from Wood's most recent fiction. There are no angry strident feminists as in The Natural Way of Things (2015), and her central character has deliberately jettisoned the succour of female friendship among older women that we saw tested in The Weekend (2019). Stone Yard Devotional (2023) is about a middle-aged woman alone and struggling with existential questions about goodness, forgiveness, hope and despair.

Indeed, this meditation on the life that's been lived reads more like an extended examination of conscience than anything else.

Catholics define examination of conscience as a process...

...to help call to mind our sins and failings during a period of quiet reflection before approaching the Priest in Confession. (Bulldog Catholic, viewed 3/11/23)

And although the central, unnamed narrator asserts her atheism from time to time, and there's certainly no mention of the Catholic ritual of confession in the novel, the preoccupation with wrongs done to others and the regrets she feels about her sins and failings seem quasi-religious to me.

Of course, that's not to say that non-believers don't engage in similar kinds of self-reflection. Most religious rites derive from rituals and ceremonies that humans do anyway.

This woman takes time out from her failed marriage and her busy life as a some kind of administrator for environmental concerns, to spend a week in solitude in a religious community on the Monaro. This small community of nuns ekes out an income by taking in guests who need a temporary escape to a life of simplicity, routine and peace. This is no 'wellness centre' with gourmet healthy meals, massage and luxury accommodation. What appeals to her is the solitude, the silence and the opportunity to reflect on her life without distraction. She decides to make this place her refuge and she joins the community. Not as a nun, but as a secular conventual oblate i.e. a committed volunteer in the service of the community, abiding by its rules but not necessarily sharing its religious beliefs.

The reader is given little or nothing in the way of a back story. We soon learn that she is grieving the death of her mother from some time ago, but we don't know why her relationship with Alex has failed, and we assume there are no children. We know very little about her friends except that they are hurt by her abandonment. The activist community from which she has summarily withdrawn is bereft as well. They do not understand, and she makes no attempt to explain, merely unsubscribing from everything.

The last thing I did on email before coming here for good was scroll and click. Threatened Species Rescue Centre: unsubscribe. Nature Conservation Council: unsubscribe. Rainforest Alliance: unsubscribe. Human Rights Watch: unsubscribe. Indigenous Literacy Foundation: unsubscribe. National Justice Project, Pay the Rent, Foodbank, Wilderness Society. Ethical Investments. Amnesty International, Red Cross, Climate Act Now, National Justice Project[sic], Aboriginal Legal Service, Bob Brown Foundation. Extinction Rebellion: unsubscribe. Change.org: unsubscribe. Fred Hollows Foundation. Greenpeace, Green Living Australia, Action Network, BirdLife Australia, Daintree Buyback. Chuffed.org. GoFundMe. Helen Parry Legal defence Fund: unsubscribe. (p.152)

Despite this disconnection from people and causes that she had obviously held dear, her retreat to a spare, monastic life can still be disturbed.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/11/03/stone-yard-devotional-2023-by-charlotte-wood... ( )