Stone Yard Devotional

A Novel

BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A WASHINGTON POST TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP FIFTEEN BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Stone Yard Devotional is as extraordinary as you’ve heard.” —The Washington Post

“An exquisite, wrenching novel of leaving your life behind.” —New York Times Book Review

"Meditative (but by no means uneventful)." —New York Times

"Riveting prose about how humans beat back despair."—Los Angeles Times

Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, a novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be good, from the award-winning author of The Weekend and The Natural Way of Things.
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.

Quiet contemplation

Despite being an atheist, he r at least not religious, the main character gives up on her life from before and submits to a life of quiet reflection in a convent. The observations about everyday power dynamics and societal norms and regrets, or at least observations of shortcomings, are haunting. A little too sparse for my taste, but still an excellent book.

Quiet and powerful

The author allows us into the complex interior life of the protagonist and the sanctuary she’d been drawn to. Questions about life, responsibility, awareness, and death are seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Beautiful, insightful writing.

Way too dreary for me.

This book was a real downer for me. Perhaps it’s just the mood. I’m in right now, but nothing but one dreary tail after another. I grew weary hearing about the mouse plague, and all the bad smells associated with it. I read this based on other reviews, but it just wasn’t the book for me.

Strange and weirdly beautiful writing

An atheist finds peace in a Catholic very rural monastery despite the plague of mice and her fellow monastery inhabitants odd behavior. A visit by an old schoolmate and the bones of a nun who once lived there cause the peace of the place to be upended in subtle and unexpected ways.
The writing is often lyrical and, although endlessly self absorbed, interesting.

The mice and facing death

I liked the reader’s quiet, intimate, delicate delivery. The story I still don’t understand. It’s more like a strange poem with fine observations.