Description

Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, Stone Yard Devotional is a powerful novel by the acclaimed author of The Weekend, exploring forgiveness, grief, and the profound complexities of human goodness.

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

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

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

Exhausted and needing rest from the demands of her life, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney behind and returns to the rural Australian landscape of her childhood. Finding shelter in a quiet religious community tucked away among the remote, stark plains, she unexpectedly settles into a secluded life despite having no belief in God or experience with prayer.

Yet her quiet refuge is disturbed by three unsettling occurrences. First, a relentless and devastating mouse infestation invades the community, plunging her into a daily struggle against the rising scourge. Next, the decades-old mystery of her lost sister resurfaces when skeletal remains are discovered, reopening wounds from a presumed murder. Lastly, the arrival of a troubling visitor draws the narrator deeply into forgotten parts of her past.

Written with keen insight, reflection, and emotional depth, Stone Yard Devotional is an evocative exploration of what happens when someone withdraws from everyday life, the complex processes of forgiveness, and the lasting marks grief leaves on a human heart.