In review: Ripeness

Sarah Moss has been writing quietly brilliant books for over fifteen years. She has gained critical acclaim, an impressive array of awards and a devoted following of readers along the way. Her latest book Ripeness was an easy choice for our book of the month.

Sarah Moss’s new book is a luminous, decades-spanning novel that explores the intricacies of family, identity, and the quiet revolutions of a woman’s life. The story follows Edith, who, as a teenager in the 1960s, is sent to rural Italy to support her sister Lydia—a ballet dancer—through the final weeks of an unplanned pregnancy. Edith’s experience becomes a formative moment that reverberates through her life. Decades later, Edith is living a contented life in Ireland when her best friend Maebh receives a call from a man claiming to be her brother. This unexpected revelation draws Edith back into the long-buried story of the child she once helped bring into the world.  

Her writing is profoundly intelligent but manages to convey a deep sense of human warmth. She deals with rich sentiment but utterly without the faintest hint of sentimentality. She has a way of looking unflinchingly at reality without ever losing sight of hope and joy.