GHOST WALL by Sarah Moss
★★★★★
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 8, 2019
I’ve read so many fantastic short novels and novellas this year (On Chesil Beach, Convenience Store Woman, Tin Man) that I’m not sure why I insist on underestimating what can be accomplished in such a short page count. But the fact of the matter is, I picked up Ghost Wall without terribly high expectations, despite the fact that I’d been eager to read Sarah Moss for a while now. More fool me – this book blew me away.
It follows Silvie, a teenager from northern England whose family joins an anthropology course on an excursion to Northumberland, living for a few weeks as Iron Age Britons once did. From the very start, tensions arise between Silvie’s survivalist father who idealizes ancient Britain, driven by nationalism and a yearning to belong to a society where he would be accepted, and the less stringent students who are only participating in the course for college credit. And as the line between reality and play-acting begins to blur, the constant threat of her father’s violence draws ever nearer to Silvie, leading to a harrowing climax.
Not a word is out of place in this novel; Sarah Moss knows how to command language to navigate the themes of imperialism, violence, class, and gender roles that are all central to this narrative. Tension builds with unerring precision in just about every facet of this story; between the individual and their environment, between modern and primitive life, between Silvie’s father and the rest of the group, and between Silvie and Molly, an older girl raised with feminist values who Silvie is drawn to, despite feeling that Molly is overly dismissive of Silvie’s own rural upbringing.
I’m not sure what else to say, other than: read this book. Ghost Wall is subtle and shocking and absolutely masterful.
Thank you to Netgalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Sarah Moss for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
1. Name a book written by an author called Michael.
3. Name a book about a character called George.
4. Name a book written by an author with the surname Smith.
5. Name a book set in Australia.
8. Name a book with the word ‘one’ in the title.
9. Name a book with a eponymous title.
10. Name a book turned into a movie.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Admittedly I never would have read these books if it hadn’t been for falling in love with the tv series back when it was good (everything after season 3 is dead to me), but I ended up loving the books despite some major issues I have with Martin’s overly detailed storytelling. Because of the sheer amount of characters you need to keep track of, this is an extremely difficult series to enjoy as a casual fan – you really do have to be obsessed in order to keep everything straight. I have an exceptionally good memory but even I struggled with these at times.
I feel like Wuthering Heights is a popular one to visit and revisit in the colder months. This book is bleaker than bleak and definitely suited to more dismal weather. Side note: I’m actually considering giving this book another try in a couple of years? I read it last winter and really did not enjoy it, but the more I think about it the more I’m wondering if that was just a knee-jerk reaction based mostly on how much I disliked Emily’s prose. But I think there’s probably more merit to it than I initially thought there was… Anyway, we shall see. Definitely not revisiting it this year. I’ll give it some more time.
Circe by Madeline Miller. Ok guys, I have to admit. I just don’t get the hype. I love Greek mythology, I loved The Song of Achilles, I love feminist retellings, but Circe was just… fine? I thought that Circe’s character arc was really spectacular and the way that Miller altered the conclusion of the original story I thought was fantastic, so it’s not like I disliked the book at all. But I did think the pacing was all over the place (hundreds of pages of tedium punctuated by a lot of action over the span of a few pages), and while I understand that that was intentional (to a point) in order to mirror the tedium of Circe’s immortality, I just felt like that element was handled so much better thematically than it was narratively; I just can’t forgive the fact that I was bored for huge stretches of this book. Anyway, I liked it, I didn’t love it, and it is everywhere.
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon. I did end up giving this 4 stars, but for being one of my most anticipated books of the whole year, I have to admit it fell short. I did think there was a surprising amount of thematic depth for the short page count, and Kwon’s writing was superb, but the characters were all incredibly thin which made it difficult to get invested. I definitely think this would have benefited from 50+ more pages where the characters could have been fleshed out into more than just archetypes.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve talked about this book before, a lot, but my love for it was sort of reawakened recently when 
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. I have… a lot of thoughts about this book and they aren’t all positive, but it ultimately won me over, and Aciman’s descriptions of Italy were some of the most evocative I have ever read. Most of my favorite memories from living in Italy somehow involve being out at night in the summertime, and there’s this one sequence in Call Me By Your Name when the characters are in Rome and they’re at a party that lasts all night and takes them to all these different restaurants and bars and then they eventually end up wandering around by some fountain and anyway, I don’t know how else to explain this but I felt that scene in my bones. Aciman knows how to bring a setting to life.
pace, amore, libri 