Ripeness
long-buried family secrets in 1960s Italy from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Summerwater
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From 1960s Italy to present-day Ireland, Ripeness is the story of a family secret that rips a teenage girl's world apart, only for her to discover its true meaning decades later.
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Summerwater, Sarah Moss.
'Moss makes every moment count' - The Sunday Times
'A book of lasting pleasures' - Eleanor Catton
'Powerful and beautifully written' - The Guardian
Just out of school and teetering on the brink of adulthood, Edith is sent alone to rural Italy. Her task is simple: support her sister Lydia, a brilliant but brittle ballet dancer, through the final weeks of her pregnancy. Once the baby is born, she is to make a phone call that will change all of their lives forever.
Decades later, Edith is living a contented life in Ireland, happily divorced and finally free. But with the arrival of an unexpected message, Edith must face the truth of that long-ago summer, and the secret she has carried for a lifetime.
‘Tender and rueful’ - Emma Donoghue
'A delicious novel' - Literary Review
'Sublime . . . glorious' - Vogue
'Luminous' - Financial Times
'Beautifully crafted . . . absorbing and moving' - Daily Mail
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Moss's layered and poignant latest (after the memoir My Good Bright Wolf), an aging divorced Englishwoman reflects on the nature of home and family while living in Ireland. Edith enjoys a casual relationship with a German potter and a fulfilling friendship with long-married local woman Maebh in County Clare. Edith's story is informed by alternating flashbacks to the mid-1960s, when she comes of age in northern England and is dispatched by her mother, a WWII refugee from France, to assist her older sister, Lydia, a professional ballerina, who is about to give birth in rural Italy. With the paternal details of Lydia's pregnancy shrouded in secrecy, Edith busies herself with Lydia's physical and emotional care as she vows to give the baby up for adoption. In the present day, Meabh receives a letter from an American man claiming to be her half brother, but is ambivalent about inviting him to visit. Meanwhile, Edith rues the man's claim on a land to which he's never been while she eternally feels like a "stranger," especially given the rising anti-refugee sentiment. Moss's characters are delightfully complex, giving shape to the narrative's meditation on belonging. This leaves readers with much to chew on.
