Stone Yard Devotional: A Novel

“The theme of forgiveness is paramount in Stone Yard Devotional. Self-forgiveness. Forgiveness of others. Lessons learned from those who forgive.”

“Near the end of the drive the sky darkened, turned drizzly. The road coiled up a steep hill, entering a tunnel of thick bush—my car struggled on the wet bitumen—and then on the other side it opened out into these endless, shallow, angular plains, bare as rubbed suede.”

“Place names I thought I’d forgotten returned to me one by one: Chakola, Royalla, Bredbo, Bunyan, Jerangle, Bobundara, Kelton Plain, Rocky Plain, Dry Plain, like beads on a rosary. Like naming the bones of my own body.”

Simmering on the barren plains of southwest Australia a remote abbey near her childhood home beckons a world-weary woman who is seeking relief from the burdens of her life. A broken marriage, an unfulfilling career, and long-standing grief over the death of her parents have worn her down and sent her in search of refuge.

Stone Yard Devotional by renowned Australian author Charlotte Wood covers a lot of ground without ever referring to the main character by name.

Resembling a series of diary entries, the book veers away from the novel form and teeters into the realm of journaling as the unnamed protagonist reveals her life in a small religious community inhabited by eight nuns. Though never taking vows and being unfamiliar with Catholic religious rituals she takes comfort in the prayerful routines and quiet reflection.

“In the church, a great restfulness comes over me. I try to think critically about what’s happening, but I’m drenched in a weird tranquility so deep it puts a stop to thought. Is it to do with being almost completely passive, yet still somehow participant? Or perhaps it’s simply owed to being somewhere so quiet; a place entirely dedicated to silence.”

But despite the sequestration the outside world still intrudes: The bones of a long-ago-murdered nun have been found and are en route to the abbey. When the narrator learns the casket is to be escorted by a nun named Helen Parry—someone she once shunned—she must confront cruel actions of her youth; a warmer and drier season than usual causes a mouse plague that must be dealt with in harsh and morally challenging ways; and within the solitude of the abbey long-held things said and done—or not said and done—rise to the surface.

Most poignant are glimpses of the enduring grief and regret the narrator feels since the death of her parents: “Once more I wish I was able to be a wiser daughter to her when she was still alive.”

The sentiment in a sentence like that is a gift to readers who struggle with similar feelings but who may think they are alone.

The author’s thoughtful perspective is appreciated throughout. As the narrator silently interacts with the natural world—chickens, mice, lambs, gardening, composting—she embraces and decodes her memories, especially those of her mother:

“My mother said that anything that had once been alive should go back into the soil. . . . Anything that had lived could make itself useful, become nourishment in death . . .”

At the abbey, her hands full of soil, there is an earthy image of her mother’s need to escape to her garden:

“Only once it began to get dark would she come inside in her dirty old purple jumper and shapeless threadbare trousers, scrub her blackened, ridged fingernails under the laundry tap, and then dip a hand into a big tub of Nivea cream. She smelled of hand cream and earth and sweat—an oily, acidic scent I associate with the dandelion flowers we used to call ‘wet-the-beds’ at school. This was her smell always, I think. She smelled of garden, even when she could no longer go outside.”

Cloistered as she is with time, profound silence, and with no expectations other than daily chores, the narrator becomes more keenly aware of scent, sight, and tactile sensation, even as they evoke conflict and self-recrimination. At one point she describes periods of time in her life as rooms, “. . . each with a door to a previous room left open, behind which is another room, and another and another. The rooms are not quite empty, not exactly dark, but they are shadowy, with indistinct shapes, and I don’t like to think about them much. When I hear the name ‘Helen Parry,’ I think of those rooms furthest back, in the deepest shadows.”

The diaristic style of writing and unnamed protagonist is an intriguing choice by the author. At first glance it threatens to prevent a fully developed character and her world. But then something else happens.

By not naming the main character or giving an extensive physical description of her the readers are able to insert themselves into the narrative, becoming more intimately involved in ways that might not be possible with a traditionally constructed novel. The narrator’s grief, regret, transgressions, enlightenment, and struggle to forgive and be forgiven, is our own.

The theme of forgiveness is paramount in Stone Yard Devotional. Self-forgiveness. Forgiveness of others. Lessons learned from those who forgive.

“Forgiveness, they say, does not require reconciliation with the person who has caused the harm, nor does it mean forgetting the hurt. There are four steps to true forgiveness, the therapists say: uncovering the nature of the harm; the decision phase, in which to explore whether to grant forgiveness or withhold it; the necessary ‘work’; and the final step, deepening or discovery.”

Musings of forgiveness and mothers are expertly woven together to connect the narrator and her girlhood acquaintance, Helen Parry. Though for different reasons, and perhaps some not so different, they have both returned to their austere hometown after decades away, each with a need to unburden.

Contemplative, melancholic, and mouse-ridden, every aspect of Stone Yard Devotional is layered with meaning, even the mice.