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An agnostic environmentalist, suffering from unresolved grief, leaves her husband and disassociates from the world by moving back to her childhood hometown in New South Wales, Australia. After taking numerous retreats to the small local abbey, she decides to join them. Though she does not take the veil, she assists the nuns by managing the kitchen and running errands in town. The slim storyline revolves around a high-profile nun, Helen Parry, who is doing important climate change work abroad. Helen had grown up in the same small town as the protagonist and had been subjected to abusive treatment by both her mother and her schoolmates. The protagonist had been one of those schoolmates and is ashamed of her role in the bullying.

Another nun from this small abbey, Sister Jenny, was murdered while engaging in missionary work, and Helen is accompanying her remains back to the abbey for burial. There has been inner conflict among nuns � particularly between those who believe in living a life of contemplation and prayer versus those who believe in living their faith through action in the outside world. The novel takes the form of a journal being written by our unnamed protagonist. The present-day storyline takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which was also a time of the “plague of mice� in New South Wales.

I could easily relate to the protagonist’s desire to disconnect from our world. She gave up her environmental work completely. I would have liked to understand more about her reasons, but one can infer them from her diary entries. I imagine the point is that she continues the effort on a smaller scale, one that is controllable at the individual level, by growing the abbey’s food and preparing it in a more ecologically sound manner. I would have preferred less about the plague of mice, but I realize it is connected to one of the author’s themes about the damage humanity has done to our planet.

It is an introspective book written in short direct prose in keeping with diary or journal entries. It explores grief, guilt, forgiveness, and mortality. Some may view this as a novel of despair, but I do not see it that way. I think it shows the many tiny ways we can attempt to make a difference in a world that often seems full of chaos, noise, conflict, and resistance to change. We can simplify. We can create calm by following routines and limiting our exposure. We do not have to be celebrities or activists to make a difference. There are many other ways to interpret this book, and I think it would make an excellent choice to discuss in a group.