Sea pinks ruffle along the roadside, and the light of the sea shifts as if a stagehand in the gods has changed it.
Edith is the child of an unconventional marriage between a Derbyshire hill farmer and a refugee whose family disappeared in the Holocaust. She’s a bright child, largely raised by her practical grandmother, her mother an intermittent presence as she travels Europe hoping to find some trace of her family. She barely knew her elder sister yet it is Edith who her mother insists must attend Lydia at the Italian villa in the Lakes where she’s holed up, heavily pregnant and angry at this interruption in her ballet career. The months that follow will be formative for Edith who grows from a naïve, young woman into one who will make her way confidently across Europe, taking up her place at Oxford. Since then, her life has been more conventional than might have been expected – marriage, a child, a career in further education – but now she’s divorced and settled in the west of Ireland, belonging yet not belonging, in charge of her own life yet not entirely comfortable in her autonomy. Her best friend’s discovery of a half-sibling brings to mind the child that Lydia had to give up over fifty years ago.
She knows the friendliness isn’t friendship, she knows she’ll never be a local anywhere now, but isn’t it better to live with people whose default is friendliness, in a country where kindness, the performance of kindness, is a way of life whether people actually feel like it or not?
Alternating with the present day, Edith’s narrative of her time in Italy is addressed to Lydia’s child, written for him should he ever contact her own son. It’s a structure that works well, Edith’s memories of that time contrasting with the woman she’s become, relishing her life alone, a conscious outsider yet involved. Moss explores themes of belonging, identity, autonomy, family, motherhood and community through Edith’s story, her background and the backgrounds of those around her. Edith thanks the Ukrainian dentist, not allowed to practice in Ireland, who serves her cake in the local café, remembering that her mother’s ancestors fled Ukrainian pogroms; her kind, generous best friend is offended by Edith’s reaction to the villagers’ demonstration against housing refugees close by; Edith ponders her own uneasiness with her privilege, her status as a blow-in and an English one, at that, with all its historical associations. I enjoyed this powerful, reflective novel which has the added bonus of some vividly evocative descriptions of the natural world woven through it.
Laura wasn’t quite as taken as me. You can read her review here.
Picador Books: London 9781529035490 304 pages Hardback
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Well, I’ve got to read this. I spent nearly a year in Italy as a 19 year old in the 1960s!
This has your name all over it, then!
Yeah, I really liked this too—I think Moss has managed in large part to get out of the rut that her fiction was in after Ghost Wall (2018). Maybe not entirely, but it feels like she’s working more constructively now.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. It had much more depth than the last couple she’s written.
Agreed!
I really like Moss so this is a must-read for me. Great to hear how much you enjoyed it!
Very much so! I hope you will too.
I like the sound of this. I enjoyed Summerwater alright and wasn’t impressed with The Fell at all, but I would give this a go for sure
This one certainly carries more heft than the previous two.
Excellent review. That quote on friendliness vs friendship–exactly such a discussion took place in the book I just finished, Ordinary Times by Annie B. Jones. Her husband brings up lowering expectations on friendships. I need to get this book to go with Ordinary Times!
Thank you. I’ve looked up Ordinary Times. It sounds good.
Reviewing it Monday I hope.
I’m glad you enjoyed this more than I did! I would certainly agree that it’s a step up from her recent novellas.
Thanks! Let’s hope she continues that trend.
Thank you for the review, Susan Osborne.
Ripeness offers a deep reflection on identity, belonging, and memory through the journey of a woman revisiting her complex past. Moss’s hopeful and quiet style gives the novel a gentle yet powerful force.
You’re welcome.
I like the sounds of her reflections here; I’ve read several of her books and enjoyed some more than others but, when I returned to a couple of them that didn’t stand out so much, just to leaf through, I hadn’t remembered them very clearly after all. I’m wondering if perhaps her bare-bones style makes it too easy to slip past some of her quiet observations and whether a second-reading mightn’t bring out another level missed on a quicker read in a different mood.
I’ve not reread her novels so hard for me to say although they’ve stayed in my memory perhaps because I’ve reviewed them.
I read Moss’s recent memoir this month. Having read it I can see where she gets ideas for the themes in her works of fiction, and your review of her new book indicates she is drawing on personal experience again to inform this new book. I did enjoy the memoir, it’s an illuminating account of personal trauma related to parental control and an eating disorder that she has had since childhood. I do like her writing and enjoyed Summerwater, but did think it was a slight book. So I am looking forward to reading this new one if it offers something more substantial.
This one is definitely more substantial than her previous two novellas. I hope you enjoy it, Lucy. I’ve yet to read her latest memoir. It sounds quite harrowing
Her memoir is quite revelatory, and courageous. She had a relapse during Covid in Dublin and her experience of the hospital system during lockdown is shocking. But they were terrible months for anyone in hospital including staff.
They were. Easy to forget how bad things were for those of us who emerged relatively unscathed.