Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

This book was long listed for the 2024 Booker Prize, which is how it came to my attention, and reading reviews it seems that the author is known for her succinct prose and for telling a story that is familiar, but told in a new and different way. That characterizes my reaction to this book, which is the 7th book of the long list that I have read--it is not my favorite to date, but it is well worth reading. The story grapples with climate change and what can one man (or woman, in this case) do? What are we going to do about global heating, about mass extinction, about our rivers? What ability do we have to change things when politicians and corporations do the opposite of nothing, they make it worse? The narrator of Stone Yard Devotional, who has been working in species conservation, chooses to chuck it all. She leaves her life and marriage in Sydney and checks into a religious sanctuary. She initially sticks her head in the sand, but eventually she joins in with the life of the convent – preparing food, cleaning, turning up to mass and the hours of office. There’s no great conversion moment, no sense of redemption, just women getting on with things. It is enough different from the usual response, in a novel or in real life, that it is worth consideration.