From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Summerwater, The Fell is a novel for our times - the story of a woman in quarantine who can't take it any more and goes hill-walking at dusk . . .
Acclaimed author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss is back with a sharply observed and darkly funny novel for our times.
'A tense page turner . . . I gulped The Fell down in one sitting' - Emma Donoghue
'Gripping, thoughtful and revelatory' – Paula Hawkins
'This slim, intense masterpiece is one of my best books of the year' - Rachel Joyce
'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 a two-week quarantine period, 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, and it will move you to tears.
‘One of our very best contemporary novelists’ – Independent
"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
"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
"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
"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 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