Tag: Pandemic

brother do you love me by Manni Coe and Reuben Coe

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brother do you love me by Manni Coe and Reuben Coe

Published by Little Toller

Available from Little Toller Website and All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Reuben, aged 38, was living in a home for adults with learning disabilities. He hadn’t established an independent life in the care system and was still struggling to accept that he had Down’s syndrome. Depressed and in a fog of anti-depressants, he hadn’t spoken for over a year. The only way he expressed himself was by writing poems or drawing felt-tip scenes from his favourite West End musicals and Hollywood films. Increasingly isolated, cut off from everyone and everything he loved, Reuben sent a text message: ‘brother. do. you. love. me.’ When Manni received this desperate message from his youngest brother, he knew everything had to change. He immediately left his life in Spain and returned to England, moving Reuben out of the care home and into an old farm cottage in the countryside. In the stillness of winter, they began an extraordinary journey of repair, rediscovering the depths of their brotherhood, one gradual step at a time. Combining Manni’s tender words with Reuben’s powerful illustrations, their story of hope and resilience questions how we care for those we love, and demands that, through troubled times, we learn how to take better care of each other.

What I Say

I have really struggled with writing a review of brother do you love me. The reason being is that I want to share endless paragraphs and pages and chapters with you, to show you how brilliant Manni’s writing is, and how perfectly Reuben’s words and illustrations show us what their relationship means to them. This is a memoir that is quite unlike any I have read, and it moved me deeply.

Manni was living in Spain as a tour guide, and his brother Reuben who has Down’s Syndrome was living in a residential home. Reuben sent Manni a text message that read ‘brother.do.you.love.me’. As soon as he read that message, Manni knew that his brother needed him, and that Reuben had to be out of that care home as soon as possible. When Reuben moved in with Manni in a cottage in the UK, Manni was shocked to see how far his brother had regressed physically and emotionally, and was desperate to get his brother back.

This is a memoir not only of the incredible bond that Manni and Reuben have, and how their love for each other transcends the frustrating limitations that the professionals tried to constrain their world with, but is also a book about the realities of caring for a family member when you know exactly what they need even if those in positions of power disagree.

Their situation is further complicated by the fact that Manni’s partner Jack is in Spain, and the rest of their family are spread throughout the world, so even though everyone is involved and supporting them, Manni is the one dealing with all the day to day decisions and being the support for Reuben on his own. What echoes throughout the book is the fact that on one hand, for Manni, having your brother who is also your best friend, living with you is the best thing, but at the same time caring for Reuben and trying to help him regain his confidence as well as dealing with all the people and teams who are involved is also incredibly exhausting and isolating. I know from my own experience that you spend so much of your time convincing the people making the decisions that honestly, yes, you really do know your family member so much better than the snapshot they have gleaned from all the forms and phone calls you have been forced to repeat time and time again.

One of the elements of the book which I think will resonate with many people, is the way in which Manni describes the realities of the social care system in the U.K. It is one stretched to its limits, with those people who use it often become little more than a set of initials moving from team to team as decisions are made sometimes with the family involved, and sometimes not. One of the worst things (and I am speaking from personal experience) is how often you find someone who absolutely understands the person you are caring for, and what they need to thrive, only to have them move on or leave, and you are left either without no one, or a new person that you have to explain everything to – never quite sure if you have said the right thing, or told them enough, or too much.

As Manni tells their story, he weaves his family’s narrative in effortlessly, as we learn everything about their family, from their childhood in Leeds, to the rift that happens when Manni tells his religious family that he is gay, to their reconciliation – and always at the heart of the story is the love and determination that the family and their friends have to ensure that Reuben is happy and living the life that he wants. In doing this, Manni also subtly shows us the difference between the Reuben of those times, and all the things they did together, and the Reuben who is now a very different man. Manni perfectly articulates not only the all consuming love you feel for the person you care for, but also the ingrained hope and desire you have for them to be accepted by the world and for them to live the life they want, rather than the life that others feel they deserve.

The book is also filled with the art that Reuben has produced, which adds an intensely personal and emotional element to the book, and Reuben also talks about having Down’s Syndrome and what that means to him. We learn how he feels about the world around him, as well his own hopes and dreams for his future. I think it’s one of the most important parts of this book, that Reuben’s voice and identity are so clear and we learn so much about him and his personality, and his relationships with his family and friends.

I wanted to finish my review by saying thank you to Manni and Reuben, who helped me think about my own situation and my own relationship with my son, who has a range of special needs, and I am his full time carer.

I know am guilty of doing too much for him, for sometimes treating him like a child at times even though he is twenty two, and for thinking I know how he feels, and not really trying to make him do any more than I think he can cope with. Hearing how Manni and Reuben talk together, and Reuben talking about himself and his identity have really helped me reassess how I relate to my son, and has opened up a whole new world for us, and for that, I can’t thank them enough.

I don’t often say this, but please try and read this book however you can. #BrotherDoYouLoveMe is not only an incredible testament to the love that Manni and Reuben have for each other, but is also a book that absolutely captures the realities of caring for a family member, and how important it is to ensure that what they want and deserve is always at the front and centre of every decision that is made.

I absolutely loved it.

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

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Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Published by Penguin Viking on 2nd March 2023

Available From All Good Bookshops

What They Say

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged . . .

What I Say

There are some authors who quite simply are auto read authors. For me Liz Nugent is one of them, because her brilliant writing where the domestic and the macabre are mixed together effortlessly, propel you into a world that is absolute proof of the saying that you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Strange Sally Diamond starts with Sally throwing out her Dad’s body with the rubbish – because that is what he told her to do. From the opening paragraph, it is obvious to see that Sally is an unconventional protagonist, and that her literal translations of instructions, distance from the world outside and her awkwardness with people and social interactions mean that Sally is very much walking her own path in the world.

When the family doctor Angela discovers what Sally has done, having known Sally and her family for years, she steps in as Sally’s protector, navigating both the legal and personal minefield that Sally now finds herself in. As we fall deeper into Sally’s world, what becomes patently obvious is that from the moment she was born, Sally’s life has been a traumatic and incredible one, which means her own self awareness and understanding of what she has had to navigate leads her to deal with the world around her in a way that she feels she is in control.

Left alone in her family home, Sally starts to unravel her own history, and discovers how she became a member of the Diamond family – and with it, a whole barrage of secrets and things never told start spilling into Sally’s life. When Sally starts to receive mysterious presents, and messages she doesn’t understand, the past that she has no recollection of starts seeping into her present.

Little by little, as the narrative weaves backwards and forwards, and by the introduction of the character of Peter into the text, we are slowly able to see exactly what happened not only to Sally’s mother, but also the awful reality of what their life was like at the hands of her father.

As always, I think it is important to let you know that Strange Sally Diamond has some very dark themes that run through this novel, there is domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse, and a prevalent theme is paedophilia. While this is undoubtedly a very difficult and challenging novel to read, Liz’s incredible skill as a writer means that these are all tackled with extreme sensitivity, and the way in which they are the backbone of the narrative never feels anything other than absolutely integral to the plot and understanding what has brought Sally and Peter to this point in their story.

I thought it was interesting to see how Sally develops as a character as the narrative moves on, and how everything we do so easily and take for granted are huge victories for her. The confidence she gains comes from working with her therapist, and her own motivation to finally embrace the world she has been detached from for such a long time. Liz’s depiction of Sally always feels that it comes from a place of compassion and curiosity, wanting us to understand that this woman has endured so much, but in learning to process her past and know that people can be trusted, that a new world is waiting for her – which can be an amazing thing, or something that brings complications that no one could have envisaged.

Strange Sally Diamond is a novel that perfectly balances the gradual development of Sally’s character once she allows herself to open up to the world around her, set against the incredibly challenging history and life she has lived in a way that feels measured and controlled – much like Sally herself. It is a novel that show us the darkest and most macabre stories of human existence and survival are often so much closer to us than we could ever possibly realise. Liz Nugent brings us into Sally’s world so completely that as we are witness to every small victory and devastating setback she faces, and all the time want only for her to finally be able to embrace the normal life so many of us take for granted every day.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Jasmin Lindenmeir and Ellie Hudson at Penguin Viking for my gifted proof copy.

The Year Of The Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

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The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Published by Tinder Press on 19th January

Available from West End Lane Books and

All Good Bookshops

What They Say

I looked around at my flat, at the woodchip wallpaper and scuffed furniture, and realised that I did have a life after all. What it didn’t have in it was a cat.

When Rhiannon fell in love with, and eventually married her flatmate, she imagined they might one day move on. But this is London in the age of generation rent, and so they share their home with a succession of friends and strangers while saving for a life less makeshift. The desire for a baby is never far from the surface, but can she be sure that she will ever be free of the anxiety she has experienced since an attack in the street one night? And after a childhood spent caring for her autistic brother does she really want to devote herself to motherhood?

Moving through the seasons over the course of lockdown, The Year of the Cat nimbly charts the way a kitten called Mackerel walked into Rhiannon’s home and heart, and taught her to face down her fears and appreciate quite how much love she had to offer.

What I Say

The pandemic and lockdown we all went through now seems for me to be a time I can remember parts of, but also feels slightly surreal, like it happened to someone else. It is also undeniably a shared collective memory that will forever unite a generation who lived through it, and I am endlessly fascinated to read people’s accounts of their experiences as a way to understand mine.

The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett takes us through that period as Rhiannon and her husband decide to get a kitten, and while this memoir may start as a love letter to cats, and the irrefutable impact that they have had on women’s lives and the stories that surround them, this book evolves beautifully into one that holds so much in its pages.

This is a book not only about Rhiannon’s experiences of owning cats through her life and how Mackerel her kitten came to be such a part of it during the pandemic, but it is also an honest and visceral memoir about trauma, PTSD, mental health, motherhood, family and caring.

Adopting Mackerel during such a strange and unknown time, when going outside became something we would never take for granted again, means that as well as focussing on Mackerel and how to look after him, Rhiannon has plenty of time to be alone with thoughts and memories. Unimaginable events that Rhiannon has lived through – a vicious assault by a stranger, and being in Paris at the very time terrorist attacks were taking place, leads her to think about her past and future, as she contemplates whether having mental health issues impact her ability to be a mother.

What Rhiannon captures so perfectly in these pages is the thoughts that so many of us have, but are afraid to articulate for fear of being judged for having them. I had an overwhelming desire to have children, but believing that my own emotional shortcomings and the fact that I didn’t know if I could care for a human being when I found it difficult to look after myself, led me to write my own lengthy diary entries as to the pros and cons of me taking that step. Reader I did, which for my first child led me down paths I never dreamed I would ever follow.

This leads me to the other part of Rhiannon’s memoir that resonated deeply with me as a full time carer, and led me to use up all the post it notes I had to hand. Rhiannon’s brother is severely autistic and in a care home, and the lockdown leads to a heartbreaking separation for them. What Rhiannon does so wonderfully in her memoir is not only to articulate what it means to not be able to visit the ones we love, but also what it means to care for someone who has special needs. The love you have is overwhelming, but like Rhiannon and her Mum, you cannot explain to someone what it means to be a full time carer unless they have lived it. To understand what it means to be in a constant state of fighting for everything and explaining repeatedly the same story told in numerous ways according to which professional and which department you are talking to. Rhiannon writes with an innate compassion and understanding that made me teary a few times, because I knew exactly what she and her Mum were feeling.

To read Rhiannon’s memories of living with her brother and mother, and the highs and lows of that time, along with some brilliant anecdotes – including an unforgettable supermarket visit I don’t think anyone will ever forget, added another layer of humanity to this unforgettable memoir, and I loved it. As Rhiannon starts to question her own ability to be a mother, we as readers already know that her lived experiences have given her so much experience already, and that we will her to see what an amazing Mum she will be, and hope she gets exactly what she desires.

The Year of The Cat will connect with many people in many different ways because Rhiannon writes about her own experiences with such candour that you cannot fail to be moved. It is also the first time I have read a book that describes so perfectly the numerous internal conversations about motherhood and the responsibilities of caring for someone else which I had before having children, and that that are still part of my world twenty one years after having my first child, which is why I will endlessly recommend Rhiannon’s book.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much to Mary-Anne Harrington and Tinder Press for my gifted proof copy.

And Just Like That, 2022 is done

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I’m not quite sure why I am writing this blog post on the last day of 2022. I haven’t read a huge number of books this year, I’ve been at times lackadaisical in posting on my blog, and have often felt like Twitter and Instagram have been changing the rules so often that I have no clue as to what the best way is to shout about books anymore!

Book blogging has been my thing for such a long time now, and while it’s introduced me to a world where I finally feel that I belong, has given me opportunities I could never have dreamed of, and has given me incredible friendships I now couldn’t be without, I am ending 2022 feeling a bit lost.

I am a firm believer in being honest about my blogging, and as 2022 comes to a close, and 2023 looms large, honestly, I have been feeling overwhelmed with it all at the moment. It’s hard to keep the energy and enthusiasm sometimes – I still love reading but by December (probably like lots of you!) I felt a bit like I was back on the bookish conveyor belt of reading books in a certain order so that I am ready to review them for publication date.

I have taken a complete break from social media over Christmas – and it’s been lovely. I’ve watched a lot of films, spent a lot of time with my family and put my phone down for days – which not surprisingly has meant I have read a lot more! It has been so refreshing to just sit and read without constantly thinking of what I am going to say in my review, and instead have just read for the sake of reading!

There are a few things I know I want to do now. I need to feel confident in my voice again, and find the joy in blogging. For me, it’s hard to keep posting when you feel like no one is listening – I know it shouldn’t matter, but when I read a brilliant book, I just want to make sure as many people as possible know, and honestly, I still get frustrated sometimes because I don’t know the most effective way to do it, and feel like I have let the authors down.

Having a chance to pause over Christmas has also given me time to think and reflect on Years Of Reading Selfishly and what I want it to be going forward next year. I am sure no one is really bothered, but for me I need to feel enthusiastic about it or I just won’t do anything! Perhaps in writing this blog post I am making myself accountable and can look back on it in 2023 to make sure I actually do what I say.

When the brilliant author Harriet Evans wrote her article for The Bookseller this year about how women over 45 love books, and that the book trade should love them back, I was lucky enough to be quoted in the article, and I also felt that Harriet perfectly articulated what I have been thinking for a long time too. As a 52 year old woman, at times I have felt invisible, at one point this year seriously contemplated stopping blogging – but do you know what – I don’t want to lose my voice or feel my thoughts about books don’t matter. There should be room for everyone to talk about the books they love, however they want to do it, and my voice and opinions count – I need to remember that, and make sure that we support each other too.

The other thing I have been thinking about a lot, is how to combine book blogging with being a carer for my adult son. I told you all this year that I am going to keep talking about the realities of caring, because as a society we don’t, and books have given me the perfect peace and space I have needed to recharge this year – because it’s hard and full on sometimes.

In 2023, I want to read and share books written by people who are carers like me, to use my blog as a way to amplify the voices of people whose stories you may not know but need to be heard. I am pulling together a reading pile of books, and am having a think about the best way to do it – more on that soon, but in the meantime I’d also really love it if the publishing industry didn’t do away with online events. Just because book lovers can’t physically be somewhere doesn’t mean we don’t want to take part…

Looking back on what I’ve written it seems like such a lot. It’s up to me now to practise what I have been preaching, but the one thing I know for sure is that while at times I do feel like I am done, that there is also something that keeps me here – and that’s the fact that sharing my love of books and reading brings me joy – and I know that I need that in my life now more than ever.

Here’s to 2023, and all the books we have waiting for us, the love of books that we want to share, and to you, the incredible bookish community who absolutely understand the joy of books, reading and shouting about them!

Lots of love,

Clare

Xxx

One Day I Shall Astonish The World by Nina Stibbe

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Published by Penguin Viking on April 21st 2022

Available from West End Lane Books

and all Good Bookshops

What They Say

Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. 

Nina Stibbe’s new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination.

What I Say

Before I tell you about Nina’s novel, and what I think of it, I have a confession to make. I usually write my reviews by referring to the notes I have taken as I write it,

I didn’t write a single note about One Day I Shall Astonish The World because I was too absorbed, and didn’t want to put it down! I was sat outside on my patio on Easter Sunday (possibly with an Easter egg!) reading it, laughing out loud and reading numerous passages to Mr Years of Reading.

It’s a brilliantly funny, incisive and emotional novel that absolutely understands not only the complexities of female friendships, but also the realities of life for so many women that it’s impossible not to be genuinely moved by it.

Susan and Norma are lifelong friends, who first meet when Susan starts working in The Pin Cushion, the haberdashery shop that Norma’s family owns. Norma breezes into Susan’s life and wants to learn about literature from her so that she can apply for courses and leave her life at The Pin Cushion behind.

While Norma forges ahead with an academic career, Susan has stayed in Brankham, married Ray – the marketing manager of the local golf club and and has dropped out of her degree course to be a full time Mum to their daughter, Honey. Norma seems scornful of the life choices that Susan has made, and yet makes her own romantic choices based on the opportunities the men afford her. She marries her first husband, Hugo Pack-Allen, the man who has invested in The Pin Cushion, and Susan cannot understand what the attraction is. Unfortunately, after they Norma and Hugo are married, certain proclivities come to light that reveals Hugo to be someone who is not what Norma thought, and a twist of fate means that she finds herself alone a lot sooner than she thought.

As Norma sets on a path of carving out a career in academia for herself, Susan is feeling increasingly trapped at home. She is knows she is ever more isolated from Ray, and when they discover Ray has a daughter called Grace from a previous relationship, Susan starts to question exactly what she is getting from the life that seems to be whizzing past her without her making any mark in the world.

It’s also important to say that Norma and Susan’s relationship is an interesting one. They are in each other’s lives, but there always seems to be an ebb and flow in the relationship, and they seem to take a delight in the passive aggressive towards each other. Yet that is what made me love them even more. The fact that they quite frankly wind each other up and sometimes seem to take delight in the other woman’s misfortune is what adds another dimension for me. I loved the fact that their friendship wasn’t saccharine sweet and cosy confidences – because friendship isn’t always like that.

The turning point is when Susan decides to apply for a role at the local University – first in the Estates Office and eventually she ends up working for the Vice Chancellor. As someone who worked in a University, I can tell you that Nina has absolutely nailed what it is like to work in a place like that! On the one hand it is steeped in tradition with a dedicated group of people determined to ensure the University never changes, on the other is the outside ever changing world and the voices of those who know that in order to thrive, it has to understand the very students it needs to come through it’s doors.

Susan feels herself increasingly drawn towards the enigmatic VC and finds herself romantically imagining a life with him, Norma is suddenly again putting herself front and centre into Susan’s life. She decides she wants the VC for herself – while also keeping other relationships on the back burner just in case! Norma soon marries the VC and Susan wonders if she ever really had a friend in her at all.

As we follow both women through their lives from 1990 right up to the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we see how their worlds weave in and out of each others, and how whether they like it or not, in the absence of other female friends, they have this really deep, but not always comfortable bond that always brings them back together.

One Day I Shall Astonish The World is an incredibly funny and touching novel about women, friendship and the lives we somehow find ourselves in. For me, one of the many brilliant things about Nina’s writing is that she has that perfect balance of humour and emotion. She intuitively understands her characters and it is testament to her writing that each and every one of them is unforgettable and relatable, and that is why you can’t put this book down.

If I had to tell you just one reason why I loved One Day I Shall Astonish The World, I would say that in a world which at the moment for me seems unsettling and confusing, this book brought me such utter joy, that to be able to lose myself completely in it was just what I needed until I really did have to put it down. That for me is the sign of a brilliant writer, and Nina Stibbe is undoubtedly that.

I absolutely loved it, and this is without doubt one of my favourite books of this year.

Thank you so much to Ella Harold and Penguin Viking for my gifted Proof copy.

You can buy your copy from West End Lane Books here.

What To Do in 2022?

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Here we are in 2022, leaving behind another year of highs and lows, of things that we could never have foreseen happening, nor would have chosen to happen, and yet 2022 hurtled out of nowhere before I really had chance to take in everything that 2021 threw my way.

Last year, I felt that I did quite well in reading lots of books – many of which I loved, and putting together my end of year #MostSelfishReads2021 proved to be even harder as my reading had been in fits and starts according to who I had at home and when!

Still, as always happens at this time of year, I sit and think about book blogging – largely because I am feeling increasingly like I am not very good at it, and as always that I spend too much time reading and not enough time reviewing. I also hit December and felt overwhelmed with it all – not just reviewing, but setting up Two Fond of Books with Amanda (which I am so extraordinarily proud of) and a series of personal events I could not have foreseen last year knocked me for six, including Covid and becoming a full time carer to my adult son when I least expected it .

I think all the things that were happening to me at home meant that for a time I had to put my reading as my last priority rather than my first, and had to admit that I just couldn’t keep up with everyone else who seemed to be posting and blogging so frequently. Then I did that thing I guess lots of bloggers do, and started to question what the point of it all was – I don’t mean that to sound melodramatic, but when life means you can’t read as much as you think you should, you start to wonder what the point of it is. Then I just lost every creative impulse in my body and simply stared at the screen, attempting to write blogs so I could at least have something to show for my reading.

I couldn’t find the words. I can’t tell you how many draft and deleted posts I have on here, but all I know is that for a woman that could previously produce blogs at the drop of the hat, now I was completely lacking in confidence – they all sounded the same, and I felt I was just regurgitating all my previous posts. So I stopped writing reviews, and instead of picking the next book off my pile to make sure I could read and review it for publication day, I picked up a book that I wanted to read, and I can’t tell you how much better I felt as I finally lost myself in a book again without the slightest inclination to review it.

Why am I telling you all this? I guess it’s because I need somewhere to write down what I am feeling – and to let other people know that if you feel that too, it’s ok to admit it. I forget a lot of the time that I am doing all this for free, and sometimes my worry of letting publicists and publishers down (who by the way are the kindest and most supportive people ever) means that I forget this is and always should be a hobby.

Anyway, I think what I am trying to tell myself and anyone else feeling baffled by the world and not quite sure where their blogging is going, is to maybe know that you are not the only one who feels like it, and theres no shame in admitting you can’t find the words at the moment. The books will always be there, and I love the feeling of finding that book that sparks something in me that means I need to write a review all about it to tell the world. I know it will come back, and in the meantime am just enjoying reading for reading’s sake again – and it feels wonderful!

Here’s to 2022, and whatever and whenever you feel like reading, and know that blogging will always be there for you whenever you are ready to return to it.

Lots of love,

Clare

xxx

The Fell by Sarah Moss

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The Fell by Sarah Moss

Published by Picador on November 11th

Available from West End Lane Books and

all Good Bookshops

What They Say

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 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 March 2020, and the place it was before. This novel is a story about compassion and kindness and what we must do to survive, and it will move you to tears.

What I Say

To write about a family going through a period of self isolation many of us have lived through is an interesting premise. In some ways, we may feel exasperated that we are reading about something that was so all consuming that we don’t need to see it in our literature, but at the same time for me, reading about other families experiences and ways of dealing with it made me feel more connected to others.

In The Fell, Sarah Moss has perfectly articulated what it means to live through such a complicated and unsettling time, whilst also ensuring there is a very human and relatable story at the heart of the novel.

Kate, like so many people is being forced to self isolate after being in contact with someone who has Covid. Having no symptoms herself, she and her son Matt are stuck in their cottage in the Peak District. Matt seemingly loves the prospect of lie ins, massive gaming sessions and a break from everyday life. Kate on the other hand is not coping at all. Right from the start you can see how she feels confined by the rules which means she can only venture as far as the garden.

Tired of cleaning the house, unable to settle on ways to keep herself occupied, she is left alone with her thoughts and she is not coping. For a woman who is used to taking a backpack and walking wherever she likes, whenever she likes, we understand how frustrated and hemmed in she must feel by the law which is imposed on her and how little control she has over her situation.

When she decides to leave the cottage and go for a walk, rationalising that as it is at dusk she won’t see anyone, and her familiarity with her environment means she can be out and back without anyone knowing, I completely understood why she decided to do it.

Their next door neighbour Alice, is widowed and her immediate family live far away. She is shielding due to her immune system being compromised by chemotherapy. Alice has been relying on Kate and Matt to help her get the supplies she needs as well as them giving her some much needed human interaction. Alice’s narrative is an interesting and necessary one, because on the one hand she realises how much she has in terms of financial security and a family at the end of a zoom call, but she misses the basic human interactions. As a daughter whose widowed Dad was in Wales during the lockdown, it was at times hard to read Alice’s words, because I kept thinking of my Dad, and although he is not an emotional man, he too had so little face to face interaction or hugs during that time, I just wanted to get in my car and drive to see him.

This is also why Kate’s actions are understandable. Many people would try and rationalise it by focusing on reasons why in our situation it doesn’t count, and why it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, and that everyone else is doing it, but always at the back of our mind are the same concerns Kate has. She is meant to be self isolating, and being found out means she could be faced with a fine she can’t afford – especially now the café she works in is closed, and she can’t get gigs singing at the pub like she used to.

Then Kate falls and badly injures herself. With no phone she realises that by alerting people, she runs the risk of legal action and losing what little stability she and Matt have. She is completely conflicted, but the thought of Matt is what makes her determined to try and get home in spite of her extensive injuries. It is only when Matt becomes concerned and attempts to talk to Alice in a really touching scene where he is making sure he is following the rules and is always at an appropriate distance, Alice realises what has happened and raises the alarm.

The interwoven narratives of the four main characters are an effective device for Sarah Moss to give us different perspectives on Kate’s actions. Matt doesn’t know where his Mum is, and can’t reach her because she has left her phone behind, Alice sees her leave but doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t want to get her into trouble, and for Rob, part of the Rescue Team who is mobilised to help find her, he has to explain to his self obsessed daughter why he has to find the missing woman and cut short their time together.

The novella is written as almost a stream of consciousness which I have to admit took me a few pages to get into, but once you start, you understand exactly why this is the perfect form. You are party to each character’s thoughts, and see like us the way their minds dart around from topic to topic. We learn about Alice’s happy marriage and Kate’s experience of a violent relationship and a dull marriage, of Matt’s worries about his Mum and Rob’s determination to both try and do his job and keep his daughter happy.

The Fell perfectly captures what it felt like to live through this lockdown. We rationally understood how it was critically important to ensure we we stayed at home, even when it made no sense, but it seems that the enforced isolation also made what we weren’t allowed to do seem even more desirable and necessary. The sense of claustrophobia, families forced to spend all day every day together without respite or a chance to see others only served to exacerbate our need to do the most basic of things we had never considered before. To be able to walk and experience nature, to go to the shops, to see and connect with people outside our bubbles became things we understood we had so often taken for granted. This is why I believe The Fell will resonate so deeply with so many people.

Sarah Moss’ writing works so well because it is not the grand gestures or explosive events she talks about, it is the small things and everyday routines we all understand and connect with. There is also this sense of how nature and the world beyond our doorstep is so incredibly important, and how small and insignificant we can feel when we are lost in it. It is another thing we can’t control, and Sarah’s beautiful and measured prose only adds to the sense of awareness as to how fragile our world is.

The Fell may not be very long, but when I had finished it, I kept thinking about it, especially what Kate had gone through, because I had felt it too. You can feel Kate’s frustration at her situation seeping through the pages, and her rationale for stepping out of her front door is understandable because hand on heart, we all felt it, lived through it and have had to deal with a new and unpredictable world that we have been forced to navigate.

I absolutely loved it.

Thank you so much as always to Camilla Elworthy for my gifted proof copy.

You can buy it from West End Lane Books here.