A review by michellehogmire
Summerwater by Sarah Moss

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thanks to FSG for an advance galley of this title, which came out in the US on Jan 12, 2021--

After really enjoying Ghost Wall, I was excited to read this new book by Sarah Moss, whose writing is quiet and understated, yet hugely emotionally impactful; I think I prefer Ghost Wall overall, but Summerwater definitely didn't disappoint.

Despite the fact that Summerwater describes a group of people vacationing in remote cabins in Scotland, the experience is much more anxiety-inducing than relaxing. The weather is relentlessly rainy, and the novel's characters either soak themselves outside or stay inside--and judge the behavior of the strangers staying around them through their windows. Mothers try to relax when it's impossible: they still have to cook and clean and take care of the kids on holiday. Teenagers resent their parents, and the quickly dying world and uncertain futures they've been dealt. Young couples try to figure out how to live a more sustainable life, while older couples resent change and hide rapidly encroaching memory loss. And everyone's upset about the "foreign" family, who host loud parties late into the night.

Moss is a master at rendering unsettled minds and rapid, associative thoughts on the page (my favorite being a woman who can't stop thinking about genocide when her partner is trying to attain a simultaneous orgasm). Summerwater is the perfect depiction of that common feeling of "trying" to relax--of criticizing ourselves for "wasting" our few days off by not appropriately enjoying them. 

Large scale social upheaval and political clashes, climate change, inherited prejudice, and natural loss loom in the background of every small moment--with interstitial chapters about animals trying to survive a perilous environment complimenting scenes of trivial human concerns. But Moss' point seems to be that these human moments actually aren't trivial: instead, like the book's stressful end, the little things often add up and burst forth dangerously, if we don't try to deal with them. 
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