I have loved Sarah Moss since her first novel, 'Ghost Wall,' and was delighted to get a review copy of her latest, 'Ripeness.' In her new book, we meet Edith at two stages in her life, as a teenager whose plan to go to Oxford is delayed and in her Seventies, living in Ireland. As with all of us, in-between that time, are different stages of her life - marriage, a son, divorce - but when we catch up with her in Ireland she is happy, and has friends and a lover.

However, in many ways, what happened in her youth defines her life and that of her sister, Lydia. Their mother is Jewish and fled to England during the war, where she married an English farmer. However, throughout the girls lives, she fails to settle, leaving eventually for Israel after her family are lost in the holocaust. So it is that when Lydia, a ballet dancer, finds herself pregnant, she is sent to an Italian villa by Igor, possibly the father, to give birth and give up her baby. Edith is told that she needs to stay with her sister, care for her (the driven and dance-obsessed Lydia does not, as we learn, wish to be cared for) and where she will both attend the birth and care for the baby under the disapproving eyes of the housekeeper until the Sister arrives who takes the baby for adoption.

This storyline touches lightly one related to Edith's friend in Ireland, which allows Moss to discuss so many of the issues of women's lives, from Edith's mother, to that of her friends mother, to Lydia and to Edith herself. It is also very pertinent when Europe itself is under attack. Europe is a small but beautiful continent. My own family has so many links with Edith, my mother's family from Italy, my father Irish, a DNA Ancestry test revealing that I have family from many other European countries, including Jewish heritage, while my husband arrived in the UK from Pakistan. In this book, Sarah Moss is passionate about Europeans remaining welcoming and open and retaining their humanity. She discusses the number of Ukrainians who have found refuge in Ireland during the war, of refugees told they do not belong, but centrally she discusses how children are displaced and the effect on them and those around them. If you have had a child, I dare you to read the sections where Lydia has her baby, of the adult decisions overwhelming and denying Edith's own desires to keep this nephew, and not cry.

This is a wonderful read. It tells of the way women protect themselves, of their pragmatism, the way they have the ability to separate their lives and to be different things to different people - mother, sister, wife, daughter. Also, of the way that things are often done to them, of how they have to live with the consequences of acts such as the situation Lydia finds herself in. In this world, so much in the lives of women are under threat. Women are not receiving an education in many countries and yet this is raising hardly a comment politically. They are unable to obtain healthcare in others, and their rights are being eroded, even in many Western countries. It is a reminder we need to look back, to see how things were and ask ourselves, do we really want to go back there? I have a daughter but also two sons, and certainly I do not. This would be an ideal novel for a reading group as it will offer so much discussion. I loved it and recommend it highly.

Another wonderful novel from Sarah Moss. How she manages to explore so many important aspects of what it is to be human, whilst also weaving together a number of fascinating narratives in ‘Ripeness’ is nothing short of brilliance.

Edith is in her seventies and lives in Ireland. She is divorced with an adult son and a lover of sorts. Whilst she feels that she will never be truly assimilated into rural Ireland, she is pretty content. She has friends and enough to live on.

One day her neighbour, Maebh, tells her that she has received a letter from someone claiming to be her elder brother, adopted by Americans as a newborn, and keen to know about his birth family. This stirs memories. Edith, too, is wondering about a baby boy given up by her ballet dancer sister, Lydia, decades ago.

The novel moves between contemporary Ireland and the past – 1960s Italy where seventeen year old Edith has been sent to support her sister in her final months of pregnancy. Clearly, the trauma has been deeply buried but as she forces herself to confront what happened, she knows that she must leave a written record in case, somewhere, a man is searching for his origins.

This is a beautifully written story in which Moss lays bare the sisters’ very different but equally painful experiences in Italy and how this determines their future choices. It’s about being an outsider, making sacrifices, living with a sense of loss, and much more. Highly recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

What a truly incredible book. A blast an emotional and intellectually challenging book. I just love this author Sarah Moss thankyou

An interesting story with a unique writing style, I found Edith's story fascinating. A really thought provoking meditation on belonging, trauma and identity - I would definitely recommend.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is a really beautifully written novel. It did take me a little while to get into it and used to the writers style and the different way the two time lines were written, but I am glad I kept going as it really developed as I read and understood it to be a letter to her nephew. So many themes and thought provoking ideas were woven into the story which was both tragic and uplifting. A wonderful piece of literature which I would recommend. Thank you.

Sarah Moss's new novel is utterly beguiling, hauntingly lyrical, and deeply moving. The story follows one woman, Edith, in two timelines, In the 1960s, Edith as a young woman is tasked with 'looking after' her heavily pregnant sister in a Tuscan villa, and making a decision about the baby that will have ramifications for years to come. In the present day, Edith is in her seventies, and the past comes back to haunt her when a friend discovers a family member. Moss always writes beautiful books, but this was sublime. The character of Edith in particular was so nuanced, and yet all the characters had depth to them which really brought the story alive. A truly thought-provoking, literary gem!

This is the dual timeline story of Edith and what happened with her older sister who was pregnant, the repercussions of that event and how it affected both of them for the rest of their lives.
This is a short book, but it took me a long time to get into. I think it's the format that it's been written in - no speech marks, very long paragraphs, no italics to indicate poetry or literary quotes, and, at times, it was difficult to separate dialogue from internal thought. The reader is made to work! Having said that, when I did get into it (probably around p80) I found it compelling, There is real depth to Sarah Moss's writing and this book is no exception.
Stick with it, it's worth it.

Literary fiction at its best. Multi layered dual timeline, exquisitely written. It did take a little while to be invested in this novel and is one to read slowly and savour. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

The book offers a beautiful exploration of mourning while also celebrating the act of living. I have always appreciated Sarah Moss's work, and this book is no exception; she excels at character development, creating deeply relatable personas. One of the standout aspects of this novel is her writing style, which captivates the reader. However, I would say this is my least favorite among the books I've read by her. I do appreciate how she addresses the topic of refugees through various characters and their diverse circumstances. Nonetheless, this approach can make the narrative somewhat challenging to follow, contributing to a sense of slowness and lengthiness in the overall story.

I LOVE Sarah Moss and I will read anything she writes. This one is going to be my book club pick for the summer.

A beautifully written book, with compassionately observed characters, a vivid sense of place and a rare understanding of relationships. The book centres on Edith, now in her 70s and alternates the present time with her past - mostly when she was 17 and in Italy taking care of her pregnant sister. Much of the writing style is ‘stream of consciousness’, which does lead to some confusion, as speech marks are largely absent, along with paragraphs and other moments to allow the reader to breathe (metaphorically!). There is much to admire here, but the book didn’t quite grab this reviewer in the way that Sarah Moss’s previous writing has.

Ripeness by Sarah Moss is an exquisite tapestry of memory and mourning, a literary journey that demands you pause and reflect. From the very first page, Moss’s prose envelops you in its melancholic cadence—a quiet, relentless reminder that our past is never truly past. One line, in particular, sears into your mind: "One generation conducts a pogrom, one flees invasion. The grandchildren of survivors instigate genocide in their turn, eyes for eyes, teeth for teeth, the continent of Europe sown east to west and back with eyes and teeth, ploughed into the earth like salt." Such evocative imagery underscores the cyclical nature of trauma and the enduring human will to survive.

Set in the lush solitude of rural Ireland, the novel meanders through dual timelines, allowing us to glimpse both the youthful dreams of a simpler existence and the bitter, unyielding truths of lived experience. Moss’s narrative is deeply introspective, questioning what it truly means to belong and how familial bonds both sustain and shackle us. I found myself ruminating on the haunting echo: "I was so sure, in those days, that I wanted a life of noble simplicity, plain living and high thinking. And normal, what could normal be, after this?" While the writing—stunning and lyrical—sometimes demands careful, almost meditative reading, its weight of emotion and intellectual rigor is undeniably rewarding.

Ripeness invites us to re-examine our own histories, our inherited grief, and our capacity for renewal. It’s a work to be savoured slowly, each page a whisper of resilience in the face of relentless sorrow. A profoundly moving, intellectually stirring read that will stay with me for a long time. Highly recommended for those who appreciate literature that challenges as much as it comforts.

"Old fool, she murmurs to herself, either way it will be food for birds, but aren’t we all, in the end, food for birds, food for worms for birds?"

Simply exquisite!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and PanMacmillan for the ARC of 'Ripeness'. All opinions are my own.

I would read anything by Sarah Moss, but this is one of her best. The two narratives are note perfect in tone and weave together at the end deftly. A quietly devastating book.

I've been a fan of Moss's work for many years and this one is by far my favourite of all her books.
It's a lyrical dual timeline account with themes of sexual consent, connection and tribalism. I loved the ponderous nature of the present day sections and how it almost felt like a stream of consciousness at times. The prose is poetic and Moss evokes a sense of place with incredible skill. The 1960s sections were evocative and compelling. The story of Edith's past was fascinating and the whole book was thought provoking. This is a triumph.

Sarah Moss is a fascinating author – I have read her three previous novels; Ghost Wall (2018), Summerwater (2020) and The Fell (2021) – each both timeless and topical and in some ways very different: Ghost Wall about historical restoration in fieldwork on an Experiential Archaeological course, which in turn leads to a debate about ancient nativism and misogyny; Summerwater a Brexit influenced tale of a disparate group of characters occupying a Scottish cabin park over a 24 hour period; The Fell an impressive attempt to deal with the inequities of lockdown.

If there are a strong common themes running through them, it is ideas of nature and place and of belonging and identity. It is is perhaps therefore no surprise that Moss, a Creative Writing Academic who moved from (the brilliant) Warwick University to University College Dublin (as part of a post Brexit decision to leave the UK) actually teaches specifically on these topics.

From a very insightful White Review interview in 2020: "It’s probably one of my long-term projects, as a teacher and as a writer, to find a way… I think of it as belonging without ownership. A very democratic idea of belonging that keeps it open for different kinds of connection and is not rooted in some property-based or genetic claim on the land. But that’s always going to be a practice rather than an achievement, for whoever is doing it. That’s very much a part of how I teach writing about nature and place: the writing is the practice of belonging. And often knowing about a place is the practice of belonging as well. I’ve moved around a lot, mostly within the UK, so when people ask where I’m from, I can say Britain, but beyond that I don’t really have an answer, and depending on the motives of the people asking, even saying Britain will collapse under interrogation, because on my father’s side there’s a classic European Jewish diaspora story. I fit in perfectly well in Britain, but that idea of a kind of ancestral connection to place – when I’m teaching, we end up talking about ‘from-ness’ – is not one that I know. There are lots of places I like very much and feel connected to, but I think none where people who feel that other kind of connection would recognise my right to be there or to have feelings about the place."

And the same themes and ideas are perhaps even more explicitly woven into this novel even though it is very different again from her previous writing - Moss saying of it in a PEN America interview in late 2024: “I have a novel out in May (in Britain). I keep describing it as ‘frothy’ and people look disbelieving, but by my standards it’s a sweet and joyful thing and I love it in ways I haven’t loved any of the others”

The novel is told by Edith – now 73 years old, having grown up in the Midlands in England (with an artistic French-Jewish mother – whose family other than her stayed in France too long and were caught in the holocaust and a rather staid English farmer father), she decided some time ago to move to Rural Ireland with her then partner – with who she more recently split up, now living on her own but enjoying a vigorous sex-only relationship with a German-born potter who lives nearby. Edith’s mother’s experience and her insistence on the precariousness of ever being accepted stays with Edith – who has learnt from her the idea of having multiple passports (and just making sure you show the right one to the right people), cash and jewellery and a suitcase always packed.

The modern day sections (told in third person) are alternated with first party sections written now (and we realise over time written as a present day record to be discovered after her birth by someone who may discover they are her nephew) which tell of when she was seventeen and before she takes a place at Oxford to study languages is effectively forced by her mother to take a year out “un petit tour” which starts with her being sent to Italy, to a Villa in the hills above Lake Como where her older sister – Lydia, a ballet dancer and member of the Royal Ballet is pregnant.

The villa itself was supplied by Igor (a Ballet director and potential father of the child – although and Edith later find that although he slept with Lydia – as with many of the dancers – the circumstances of the conception are actually worse); and Edith and Lydia’s mother has arranged for some French nuns to take the baby away a few days after birth for adoption (Lydia desperate not to be a mother but unwilling to have an abortion due to the baby being maternally Jewish). At first the villa is occupied by other ballet company members and we get a real insight into ballet training off stage - I have also read that the ballet (which is integral to the novel) originated in a childhood reading ballet books, and then much later finding a mutual love of ballet with her eldest son when they lived close to the Birmingham Royal Ballet and wanting to explore it in a novel. We also get a strong insight into Lydia’s fiercely focused, unyielding and unsentimental character. Lydia also maintains something of her independence, trying her Italian and exploring the grounds (images of abundant ripening fruit proliferate alongside her sister’s much less welcome ripening). Later when the other dancers have to return for the next season a short time ahead of the birth Lydia and Edith are left alone other than for a very small staff, and post birth with Lydia refusing to even acknowledge the baby Edith becomes a pseudo-mother for a few days in what are some really moving scenes – particularly as nearly 60 years later she tries to describe them for that very baby to possibly read if he ever discovers his adoption and traces his parenthood. This section in particular has some really nice literary references also – for example to Middlemarch.

The modern day sections are where the ideas of belonging are much more central – both her German lover and she are in some ways part of the community and someways not, and that also goes for a number of others who live in the village. Edith is particularly conscious of both her English origins (and therefore coloniser background) but also her Jewish background. The village is a popular tourist destination but also has recently given a welcome to a number of Ukranian refugees (Moss again very much adding her trademark topicality), but then a very hostile reception to a plan to house African asylum seekers in a local hotel. This can as I write it sound heavy handed in the reinforcement of the themes but is done more naturally than I have written it – although I did find this section less engrossing than the historical ones and have to say I much preferred the 17 year old Edith to the 3 year old one – ripeness did not work for me in this respect.

The other storyline which draws the two parts together is when Edith’s closest friend (other than a fallng out over the protests) Maebh – receives a message from a man in America who based on a DNA test believes they are siblings – and it’s the subsequent meeting (which Edith hosts) and her discomfort both over the idea that the American now seems to think he is Irish and the very concept of DNA tests (thinking again of the Holocaust) that drives her letter to her nephew – the DNA part being perhaps the one part where the themes do become a little too heavy handed.

But overall a fascinating, enjoyable and intelligent novel.

I enjoy the writing of Sarah Moss to the point that I read most of her back catalogue by now, but I would also be the first person to point out some major issues with it. I both immensely enjoyed and was somewhat disappointed by Ripeness, her latest fiction offering. On the whole, her shorter pieces (Ghost Wall, Summerwater) tend to work a bit better for me, as her longer work (The Tidal Zone, Bodies of Light, Sights for Lost Children) tends to somewhat suffer from a lack of focus. The greatest strength of her writing, brilliantly exhibited in Ripeness, is her power of observation. Her comments on the half-tones of her characters' development, her thoughts on a range of contemporary issues, her precise and lyrical, a rare combination, descriptions of walking are often worth underlining and re-reading, However, the trees do not always come together into a coherent forest.

Ripeness explores quite interesting concepts and scenarios. It follows the story of Edith, a 17-year old teenager in the 1960s and an older divorced woman in the present day. Edith, a daughter of a Holocaust refugee and an English farmer, ends up spending most of her adult life in Ireland. As a teenager, however, she has a brief stint in rural Italy, where she helps her pregnant sister, a ballet dancer, prepare for the birth of the child she is set to give up to maintain her career.

Everything and anything is mixed up in this book. It touches on refugee experiences, Jewishness, rape culture, abortions, Irishness, Magdalene Laundries, the war in Ukraine, toxic ballet culture, and many many other things. It felt like the author wanted to say something about almost every single thing happening in the world. As those things are said by the narrator, Edith, it made her appear quite an unlikable know it all older white woman. The set up of a daughter of a Jewish refugee whose family left Eastern Europe because of gentile antisemitism work through her ambivalence towards presumed gentile Ukrainian refugees, the very people who drove her family out of their homes a century ago, is interesting. Edith's comments on the different attitudes to Ukrainian and Middle Eastern refugees in Ireland today are superimposed on the story of her mother, who, as a Holocaust refugee, did not get the luxury of a refugee visa scheme and whose entire family was killed by the Nazis (with a heavy implication that they could have been saved, more could have been done for them). It is a conversation worth having, and it is a theme I have seen in the public discourses of Ukrainian Jews today, who, although fiercely anti-war, can also feel ambivalent about Ukraine and their place there. I feel that this conversation needs to be led by Ukrainian Jews with first-hand experience of Ukrainian attitudes to Jews, though, and as far as I know, Sarah Moss is not a Ukrainian Jew.

Edith goes on to discuss ideas of belonging and migration, basically coming to the conclusion that a piece of soil cannot be a home, that ethnonationalism is rooted in biological determinism and that we should all be free to make a home where we want. Which is all well and good, but the character is an English person living in Ireland. The discussion of this in relation to Ireland is wrapped up in a narrative of Edith, living in Ireland for 40 years, still being seen as a foreigner, whereas a Magdalene Laundry adopted baby who lived his entire life in the USA is, in her mind, seen as properly from this village and properly Irish in a way she would never be. Edith pays some lip service to acknowledge the different colonial power dynamics which play a role in her argument, as it can be read as an endorsement of settler colonialism. She does not seem to take them seriously, though, and she sure as hell does not discuss the state of Israel, the place her mother ended up in as a settler. The words Palestine or Palestinians is not mentioned once in the novel. At best, this presents Edith as a hypocrite, and at worst, as a staunch Zionist, whose talk about the right to belong anywhere is, in reality, a call for the native and indigenous people to make space for her on their land. As a result, all the seemingly pro-immigration arguments Edith is making get drowned in the context of her words, which are easily interpreted as yet another metropolitan imperial woman deeming local anticolonial movements too unbecoming and barbarous for her progressive, enlightened and liberal ways.

Couple this with a very weird throwaway discussion of how she really enjoyed having a purely sexual relationship with her Oxford professor and how she does not see himself as a victim, and Edith turns into almost a caricature of a particular type of a liberal white woman (think Catherine Deneuve or Mary Beard). The thing is, I am really not sure that Sarah Moss intended Edith to be a caricature, or even a commentary on that specific type of white woman. Throughout the novel I was under the impression that we are supposed to, overall, sympathise with Edith, and I think the narrative would have been stronger and more impactful if it had been intended as a commentary.

A minor point, but the pacing is also quite off, the novel feels far too long. The narrative of the 1960s sections tries to explain the pace and makes it clear that the slowness is very deliberate, but, in my opinion, it was still not justified.

Overall, loved the writing, often didn't love what it was saying.

Sarah Moss is an extraordinary writer of literary fiction and her latest is no exception. As I began reading, at first the lack of speech marks and the interwoven timelines in Italy in the 1960s and in Ireland in the present day took some unravelling, but this engrossing story told by Edith, now a very independent woman in her seventies, as she explores and writes (for a child from the past as we slowly discover) about her present life and remembers the past when she was a teenager becomes both immersing and intriguing. The strong ballet dancer story from her past and the ‘cruelty’ of that vocation choice (not her’s but her sister, Lydia’s choice) is fascinating and shows just how singular dancers must be to even think of succeeding, and Edith’s relationships with her sister and her mother, and now, in her seventies with her sometime lover, Gunter, is about becoming oneself, belonging, however late in life, finding a home, making peace with the past, living in our space. Superb.

Edith is a woman in her Seventies and yet it seems like her life has only just become what she wants it to be. A home, a land, friends and a lover that all make sense to her. As she navigates her days, she is increasingly drawn to think back to the summer that as a teenager she was sent to Italy to help care for her sister, whose unwanted pregnancy sits between her and her career as a ballerina. This book is about what it takes to come to fruition in every sense. It looks at ideas of refuge, of home, of belonging and what either stops or allows us to find our space. It's an absolute triumph of a book.

Edith’s life in rural Ireland and Italy, spanning many decades. Edith is a strong and interesting character whose background is rich.
One day, in her 7th decade of her life, she receives some news.
The most interesting aspect for me was that Edith was rather different and unique. I have a personal connection with Ireland and have read many amazing books set in rural Ireland, hence the multicultural elements of Edith’s life and how they influenced who she is were satisfying to read.
The themes were rich and complex.
The writing and the plot 4/5.
Themes, characterisation, setting 5/5.

It took me a while to get into this, but by about a third of the way through I was eager to get back to it and didn't want it to end.