The Rural Australian Abbey

Most of the novel takes place in a remote Catholic abbey in rural Australia during the narrator’s initial retreat and her later return, spanning the mouse plague and the lead-up to Sister Jenny’s burial. The abbey’s strict schedule of prayer, meals, and work shapes the narrator’s days, forcing her to confront silence, routine, and the limits of withdrawal. As outsiders arrive and crises intensify, the abbey becomes a testing ground for how a community holds together under pressure and how devotion coexists with fear, conflict, and practical necessity.

The Abbey Church

The church is the central interior space where the sisters gather repeatedly across the day for the offices and Mass. Its dim, enclosed atmosphere and fixed ritual order shape the narrator’s sense of time, making repetition feel both consoling and oppressive. Because the narrator measures her own restlessness against...