The Fell
from the bestselling author of Summerwater
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- €1.99
Publisher Description
From Sarah Moss, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall, comes a story about the circumstances and the consequences of isolation.
‘A tense page-turner . . . I gulped The Fell down in one sitting’ - Emma Donoghue
‘Her work is as close to perfect as a novelist’s can be’ - The Times
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 two weeks of Covid isolation, but she just can’t take it any more – 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 the first Covid lockdown in March 2020, and the place it was before. This novel is a story about compassion and kindness and what we must do to survive.
‘Gripping, thoughtful and revelatory’ - Paula Hawkins
‘This slim, intense masterpiece is one of my best books of the year’ - Rachel Joyce
‘One of our very best contemporary novelists’ - Independent
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Sarah Moss writes beautifully on British landscapes (see Summerwater and Ghost Wall and here she takes us to the Peak District for a book that captures the confusion, fear and paranoia felt during the 2020 lockdowns with a dark humour. We meet three central characters: Kate, a single mother struggling with quarantine who breaks the rules to escape for a walk, but falls and badly injures herself; her neighbour Alice (battling cancer while living alone); and Rob, one of the mountain rescue team. It’s an incredibly human novel and does a fine job inspecting the impact that lockdown rules and restrictions have had on our humanity—while acknowledging their necessity. It shows ordinary people battling with this bizarre situation, and the stream of consciousness style reflects the internal battles (and guilt) many experienced.
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.
