Set at a rural Australian monastery, with a minimal plot and a looming climate catastrophe, this is a book of introspection – and of despair
Stone Yard Devotional begins with an unnamed woman pulling up in the carpark of a monastery in her childhood town, after visiting her parents’ graves “for the first time in thirty-five years”.
The woman is staying at the monastery’s guest house on a retreat of sorts , in the wake of a professional crisis and the failure of her marriage. She revels in its solitude and silence; she watches the nuns performing chores and their hourly prayers; she wanders through the property, and she thinks and waits, and something in her responds to this in ways she neither expects nor understands.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning And climate grief is embodied too in a figure from the narrator’s past: “celebrity nun” Helen Parry, who arrives at the monastery on official business, and disrupts the quiet community with her “dominating” presence. Helen Parry – she is always referred to by her full name – is an activist, working especially on environmental and human rights issues.
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