March
27
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
The extraordinary skill of Charlotte Wood is to craft her writing to accent and mimic the landscape and backdrop of her stories. Stone Yard Devotional is sparsely and dryly written but it’s deeply rich….like the harsh, barren Australian outback which is also home to breathtaking, raw beauty. Does that make sense, or have I drunk too much of the Charlotte Wood cool aid?
I’ve loved this author since reading The Submerged Cathedral (get on to it if you haven’t read it). Since then she’s produced wonderful books including The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend (both reviewed here) so I was thrilled to have nabbed Stone Yard Devotional before Ms A beat me to it (let’s admit it, her blogging and reading game is super-bowl strong in 2024!).
Set in the stark, dusty hills of Monaro, Australia, a woman finds herself living in a religious community – almost by accident. She doesn’t believe in God, but she has escaped the city and her marriage and in seeking peace and solace, she returns to her childhood home to live with nuns. It was meant to be temporary; a reprieve; a breather but lulled and protected by the rhythms of a monastic life, she stays.
The loss of her mother is a trauma she can’t move past and alone, in her isolation, it consumes her. Silent days and nights leave room for all the memories to scream at her until a series of events quiet them. The first is an apocalyptic-esque mouse plague and the nuns spend each waking moment in a battle to escape, outwit and kill thousands of rodents. Their carcasses are piled high making rotting rodent-hills around the property. Any victory is short lived as more and more mice descend.
And then another body is found – the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister disadvantaged women in Thailand. Presumed murdered since she disappeared, her remains are finally returned to the monastery by a woman well known by all. She is someone else who had grown up in the area and so more vivid memories come flooding back, yet this shared history remains unspoken, strained and ignored.
This is a powerful, meditative read told in three parts. It is rather like laying in a hammock, rocking gently. The chapters are short and precise. There are no words used for effect, some chapters are half a page. These words don’t mess about.
This all makes Stone Yard Devotional an absolutely beauty. You’ll be soothed, jolted, you’ll squirm but always warmed by, and devoted to the story with each line. And of course, let’s not forget the bonus that Woods throws in – how to come out swinging in our next mouse plague.
But that is just my 2 cents worth.
Readhead 