Having unexpectedly been included on the shortlist for the Booker Prize, to the surprise of the betting companies, Charlotte Wood is the first Australian author to make the shortlist since 2014, when Richard Flanagan grabbed the laurels. Her seventh novel, ‘Stone Yard Devotional’, which is her third to get published internationally, tells the tale of a woman who leaves her career and spouse in Sydney in favour of monastic life near her place of birth. Despite being an atheist, she isn’t motivated by religious zeal, but rather by frustration over her seemingly useless work trying to save endangered species.
‘In Stone Yard Devotional’, along with addressing environmental issues, she also explores themes such as grief and reconciliation. She describes it as her most autobiographical novel yet, set in a Catholic monastery in New South Wales, where her own childhood was spent. According to the unnamed protagonist, she seemed to recall forgotten location names, one after the other, like counting a rosary’s beads. Visiting her parents’ graves for the first time in three and a half decades, she shares how she has always carried the sense of shame and guilt from not being able to move past their premature deaths and dwells on the subtle recurrence of her sorrow.
The narrative style of ‘Stone Yard Devotional’ is quite calm in comparison to her previous novels. It is a collection of reflective journal entries, and includes retrospections from the protagonist’s life. This contrasts with ‘The Natural Way of Things’ (2015) – a pre-emptive #MeToo tale, that tells a dystopian story about ten young women exploited by powerful men and trapped in the wilderness. In contrast, ‘The Weekend’ (2019)’s suspense increases towards the climax as three women in their seventies are reunited due to the death of a close friend. With the writing of ‘Stone Yard Devotional’ coinciding with the lockdown measures introduced due to the Covid pandemic and her cancer diagnosis, Wood acknowledges these doubly disconcerting events have encouraged her to pare down her writing to only what is truly vital.
In the narrative of the novel, the everyday monotony of the nuns’ lives is shattered by three startling “interruptions”. A severe drought up north has led to a mice invasion, a grotesque incident that has started to infiltrate their region. This bears resemblance to real-life accounts of mouse cannibalism that took place in 2021. In addition, the physical remains of Sister Jenny, a former nun from the convent who left against counsel to run a haven for mistreated women in Thailand in the 1990s and was believed to have been killed by a priest, have been discovered following a flood and are now being returned for interment. The last interruption is the coming of renowned activist nun, Helen Parry, who carries Sister Jenny’s remains from Bangkok. Parry was a schoolmate of the novel’s narrator and was once victim to bullying. She remains closed off to her former classmate’s regret.
Wood’s intent for the style of the novel ‘Stone Yard Devotional’ was for it to reflect its setting, the isolated, barren Monaro plains, analogous to a landscape stripped to its bones. One nun rejects the narrator’s interpretation of prayer as a direct communication route to God. She defines prayer as an interruption to habitual thinking, stating it’s not casual conversation but hard work. While the narrator may not be devoted to God, the ‘devotional’ in the title signifies her spiritual advancement through the focused attention she practices. To put it in the words of Simone Weil, attention at its peak can be equated to prayer.
Despite being brought up in a Catholic environment, Wood accredits the tedium of church services for sparking her creativity, stating a preference for art over worship. She mentions her “loyalty” to her fellow countrywoman Helen Garner, whose 1985 anthology, ‘Postcards from Surfers’, inspired her writing career. Compared to contemporaneous authors like Samantha Harvey or Claire Keegan, Wood’s writing style in ‘Stone Yard Devotional’ is simpler, conjuring images of a rough-hewn stone.
While climate-fiction often suggests terrible futures, Wood’s novel illustrates more routine existential struggles, involving moral dilemmas of withdrawal versus proactive behaviour to fight despair. The remains of Sister Jenny ultimately find their resting place in a field named ‘Stone Yard’. Amid the red tape associated with acquiring burial rights, Parity introduces a solution to the despair of inertia by demonstrating that we have the power to grant ourselves permission.
‘Stone Yard Devotional’ creates a safe haven to ponder existential questions. The well-known quote from Julian of Norwich, stating “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”, adorns the abbey’s corridor. However, there is a moment during Vigils when the narrator is overwhelmed by the realisation that outside the abbey’s confines, not everything is good, and not all things will be fine. The narrator confesses her lack of understanding towards her duty towards this revelation, apart from acknowledging it.
Mia Levitin is a commentator.