The Fell

Description

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall '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 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 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

Sarah Moss is the author of eight novels including the Sunday Times top ten bestseller Summerwater, and Ghost Wall, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize. She has also written a memoir of her year living in Iceland. She was born in Glasgow and grew up in the north of England. After moving between Oxford, Canterbury, Reykjavik, west Cornwall and the Midlands, she now lives in Dublin, where she teaches English and creative writing at UCD.

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 Carefully, affectingly and with emotional veracity, Moss opens out Alice's secrets along with everyone else's: the mortal fears, the losses, the mistakes. Moss writes so compassionately about human frailty while her own work is as close to perfect as a novelist's can be * The Times * With The Fell, Sarah Moss seems to have achieved the impossible: she has written a gripping, thoughtful and revelatory book about lockdown -- Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train A funny, savage novel * Guardian * Absorbing . . . ingeniously done . . there's an intoxicating flow to much of the writing . . . a humane, thoughtful reflection on the lockdown experience * Scotsman * The Fell reflects the lives we have been living for the last 18 months in a way no other writer has dared to do. There is wit, there is compassion, there is a tension that builds like a pressure cooker. This slim, intense masterpiece is one of my best books of the year -- Rachel Joyce A one-sitting read that's both thriller and stream of consciousness meditation on how Covid has changed our world . . . ambitious and immersive * Red * Moss is strong on pastoral lyricism, and her characteristic humour is as piercing here as in her previous novels . . . The Fell eloquently explores many of the big issues we have been facing since March 2020 * The Times * A masterfully tense, deeply empathetic novel about lives stilled and re-examined, and the uncertainty and danger of the world that surrounds them. I was completely riveted by the central questions of its narrative, and by its tender, insightful exploration of the times we are living through -- Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From Again and again, and always with steely precision, Moss has mined both the circumstances and the consequences of isolation . . . one of the very best British novelists writing today about contemporary life - if anyone can justify writing a pandemic novel, she's the woman for the job * Daily Telegraph * She conjures the fretful confinement of the pandemic with colossal skill . . . deft and evocative . . . the operation to rescue Kate is nail-biting. There are also scenes of unbearable poignancy . . . shrewd and moving * i * The pandemic is spawning some fine writing, and this helter-skelter novel by Moss is one of the best yet. The book captures both the paranoia of the times and the kindness of strangers -- Mail on Sunday The novel's chief achievement is the way it calcifies a specific moment in recent history . . . Moss perfectly simulates the stifling psychological confinement and ennui of locked-down life . . . Moss writes evocatively of the stark beauty of the countryside . . . a neat, atmospheric novel * Literary Review * [The Fell] leaves the reader on tenterhooks as the story builds to its conclusion. Moss perfectly captures Kate and Alice's self-isolation-induced claustrophobia . . . Some readers might not want to immerse themselves in the cabin fever of early lockdown so soon after living through it, but Moss makes a strong case for social connection being as important as our physical health for survival * Daily Mirror * Moss steps into other people's shoes with impressive ease. Her prose is clear, low-key and compelling, its power incremental . . . The Fell is about the hazards that lurk at the edges of life. Feelingly, but without sentimentality, Moss explores what happens when you find yourself teetering on the precipice * Herald * The Fell is very much a novel of our time . . . it takes note of the moment, and captures what seemed unimaginable even a year before it was set. But it also offers hope . . . there may be a time when what is described here is, indeed, in the past, and a novel like The Fell will help us to remember * Church Times * It seems ever more important that fiction acknowledge the truths the pandemic has revealed to us: how connected we all are, and how much we fear one another * Guardian * Moss is brilliant at creating a feeling of mounting peril . . . Her humour is so black it's treacly She's also one of our best writers on the natural world . . . [The Fell] confirms that Sarah Moss is a writer of remarkable power, control and deftness. She's funny, observant and very much of the moment * Oldie *