I hate mice. No, more than hate. I have a phobia. They never used to worry me until 15 years ago, when our house was overrun after a large empty block of land next door was subdivided and developed. All the mice, who had lived happily in the grasses for years, took up residence with us. There was shit evidence of them everywhere. You would hear them at night. You would see them dart across the floor out of the corner of your eye. I would vacuum along the skirting boards every morning, the droppings pinging in the vacuum like gravel. It took us weeks to get rid of them.

I mention the mice because although Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood is about a woman who retreats to a small religious community in regional New South Wales, and more specifically, the return of a nun’s body to the Sisters in the community, the backdrop for the story is a mouse plague. Wood’s descriptions of the mice made me so anxious (I’m not over-stating that – I frequently put the book down when the mouse bits became too much) that I can only assume that she also isn’t a huge fan of mice.

The sound of the mice makes me shudder. It’s the hiddenness, I think. And that the noise stops when I get near: they’re sensing me more acutely than I sense them.

I won’t fixate on the mouse bits. There are other elements to this story – the return of the nun’s body to the religious community drives the story, and allows Wood to explore themes of spiritual belief and reckoning. However, the seemingly less significant elements of the story were of most interest to me. While living with the holy nuns, the main character reflects on her mother’s life and character traits, with the parallels between the two ‘saints’ clear –

But still, it has surprised me, over the years, to discover how many people find the idea of habitual kindness to be somehow suspect: a mask or a lie. My mother did have an uncommon sort of simplicity, a light oddity, about her.

As always, Wood’s exploration of grief is done obliquely and with a light touch –

We all make saints of the dead, I said. It’s the only way we can bear it.

I also enjoyed the hints about why the main character exited ‘mainstream’ life and her marriage –

You do not announce on Facebook that you, an atheist, are leaving your job and your home and your husband to join a cloistered religious community. I mean you could, and it might be a better way than I chose, which was not to announce anything to anyone. People were wounded. Very wounded.

She alludes to the despair she felt, and the intense need for solitude. Whether she found the peace within the religious community that she craved is unclear, but she notes –

…I know this much: everyone here has hurt someone by coming.

This is the stuff that I think separates Wood’s writing – succinct and searing observations that get straight to the (sometime ugly) truth of a matter.

Have to also include the narrator’s reflection on what she misses having taken up residence with the Sisters –

Mostly I miss catching a baby’s eye on a bus, the way its gaze stays with you, serious and steady and curious, observing you from the little throne of its stroller. I did love that. I miss that, a lot. When I go into town I keep an eye out for babies, but I don’t see them often.

This book wasn’t gripping in the way that some of Wood’s stories have been, nor did it pick apart relationships as her other books have, but the introspective quality was deeply satisfying.

4/5

The dessert is some kind of apple pudding. The pudding is good; everything else is ordinary.

The descriptions of the food served at the retreat are grim but mention of apple pudding reminded me of a Dutch apple cake that my mum would occasionally make for dessert. It was delicious (even though I don’t normally go for hot fruit).