Sarah Moss’s latest book is a miracle of economy and
compression. In its 152 pages she
creates a world of emotions that gradually build up into threats, fears, and
finally actions, which combine to create a shocking climax, relieved only
partially in a morally ambiguous coda.
This all takes place In a few acres of Northumbrian moorland, involves
only eight people, and is all over in a couple of hot, summer days. This suggests more a short story than a
novel, but the book’s power belies its brevity.
We are confronted by the conflicting forces of domestic
violence and family love, the North-South divide, the posh and the unposh,
laddish arrogance and feminine good sense, bullying and submissiveness. The tale is told by Silvie, the 17 year old
daughter of a bus driver with a fanatical and racially chauvinistic obsession
with reconstructive archaeology. Read
it, and see whether you agree with the Financial Times’s critic, who detected
in it a Brexit parable. I found it
powerful, and disturbingly thought-provoking. RT
