The Fell
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
At dusk on a November evening in 2020 a woman slips out of her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two week quarantine period, but she just can't take it anymore - the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know.
But Kate's neighbour Alice sees her leaving and Matt, Kate's son, soon realizes she's missing. And Kate, who planned only a quick solitary walk - a breath of open air - falls and badly injures herself. What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation . . .
Unbearably suspenseful, witty and wise, The Fell asks probing questions about the place the world has become since March 2020, and the place it was before. Sarah Moss's novel is a story about compassion and kindness and what we must do to survive, and it will move you to tears.
PRAISE FOR THE FELL
'A slim, tense page turner that captures the weird melancholia of locked-down life but also the precious warmth of human connection. I gulped The Fell down in one sitting' Emma Donoghue
'With The Fell, Sarah Moss seems to have achieved the impossible: she has written a gripping, thoughtful and revelatory book about lockdown' Paula Hawkins
'Moss is the most brilliant writer. She deserves to win all the prizes' Joanna Trollope
'One of the best writers at work in Britain today' Fiona Mozley, author of Elmet
'A funny, savage novel' - Guardian
'Moss's star is firmly in the ascendant' - Guardian
'Absorbing . . . ingeniously done . . . there's an intoxicating flow to much of the writing . . . a humane, thoughtful reflection on the lockdown experience' - Scotsman
'One of our very best contemporary novelists' - Independent
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moss follows Summerwater with a revealing if tepid account of a family's frustrations and fears while under quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kate and her teenage son, Matt, are in the middle of a mandated two-week lockdown at their home in Derbyshire, England, after Kate's colleague tests positive. Restless, Kate breaks protocol and, without telling Matt, walks out of their house one evening, leaving her phone behind and trekking into the local mountain range for a brief escape. While there, she tumbles and badly injures herself. Unaware of Kate's whereabouts, Matt panics, and a neighbor, Alice, calls the police. Though the story takes place over the course of one night, Moss fleshes things out via the characters' memories and tangents, as Kate worries of government punishment and thinks back on her school days ("maybe they were right at school that breaking one rule makes it logical to break another until the commandments fall like dominos"), Matt waits to hear the worst, and Alice remembers her late husband. The interior monologues exhibit the author's talent at developing her characters, but in the end it all feels a bit inconsequential. For those already weary of the state of the world, this doesn't tread enough into new territory.
