Synopsis
The perfect book club summer read from the Sunday Times bestselling author.
In 1960s Italy, a family secret rips a teenage girl's world apart, only for her to discover its true meaning decades later.
'Moss makes every moment count' – The Sunday Times
'A book of lasting pleasures' – Eleanor Catton, Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries
'Powerful and beautifully written' – The Guardian
'Endlessly intriguing' - The Observer
Just out of school and teetering on the brink of adulthood, Edith is sent alone to rural Italy. Her task is simple: support her sister Lydia, a brilliant but brittle ballet dancer, through the final weeks of her pregnancy. Once the baby is born, she is to make a phone call that will change all of their lives forever.
Decades later, Edith is living a contented life in Ireland, happily divorced and finally free. But with the arrival of an unexpected message, Edith must face the truth of that long-ago summer, and the secret she has carried for a lifetime.
'Tender and rueful’ – Emma Donoghue, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Room
'A delicious novel' – Literary Review
'Sublime . . . glorious' – Vogue
'Luminous' – Financial Times
'Beautifully crafted . . . absorbing and moving' – Daily Mail
Details
Reviews
“Sex and childbirth, emigrant and exile, the present and the past: Sarah Moss’s ambidextrous talent is evident on every page of this elegant novel. It is intelligent, but never disembodied; evocative, but never sentimental; honest, but never cruel. Ripeness is a book of tart and lasting pleasures”Eleanor Catton, Booker prize-winning author of The Luminaries and Birnam Wood
“This book felt to me like I was reading the achievement of a lifetime, written by one of the best writers alive. Moving, unexpected, masterful, it is a story of stories, of belonging, of exits and entrances, and everything in between. Moss’s understanding of who her characters are is also her understanding of all of us. A beautiful, powerful read that echoed for me long after”Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
“Tender and rueful, Ripeness is a tale of being a foreigner that moves between 1960s Italy and 2020s Ireland, finding pain and bliss in both. Working at the height of her mature powers, Sarah Moss is a marvel of insight and eloquence”Emma Donoghue, author of Room
“Sarah Moss is one of the best writers working today, and this might be her best book yet. A wise and tender novel about birth, ballet and belonging, it captivated me completely”Bobby Palmer, author of Isaac and the Egg
