Do you have to believe in God to join a religious order?” asks the narrator of Charlotte Wood’s “Stone Yard Devotional.” The question would seem to be rhetorical, since the unnamed, middle-aged ...

Charlotte Wood’s novel, a Booker Prize finalist, follows an atheist whose mysterious path led her to live among nuns in a ...

In Charlotte Wood’s novel “Stone Yard Devotional,” an atheist burrows into herself while staying in a convent, and contemplates how to live without causing harm. Credit...Wesley Allsbrook ...

Award-winning author Charlotte Wood discusses her Booker Prize shortlisted novel Stone Yard Devotional at the Jaipur ...

From here, Wood fast-forwards four years. Her protagonist has turned her back on her job, marriage, and friends and made this convent her fixed abode. Her succession of sacrifices has proved damaging: ...

And now, as though publishing were operating by steam ship, “Stone Yard Devotional” has finally arrived in the United States. It’s just as extraordinary as the whispers from abroad suggested.