Summerwater – Sarah Moss (2020) 199 pages
I was keen to read Summerwater by Sarah Moss, as I’d been really impressed by Ghost Wall when I read it for NADIM back in 2020. For me Summerwater wasn’t as strong as Ghost Wall, but it was still impressive and a compelling read.
Set in a holiday cabin park on the side of a loch, the narrative moves between the various tourists, building a picture of different families, the individuals and their relationships to each other.
It won’t stop raining and the enclosed small spaces are causing tension between nearest and dearest:
“It’s a thin partition, she says, I can hear everything, it’s not nice. It puts you off, lying there listening to aggressive peeing from someone who could perfectly well just bloody sit down but won’t because in his head the masculinity police are watching even in the middle of the night, hiding, peering through windows or crouching in the laundry basket.”
There are families with frustrated adult children, families with young children, happy marriages, tense marriages, the older couple who have been coming for years and own their cabin:
“He pours, from higher than necessary, admires the shape of the falling liquid and the steam curling from it, an indoor imitation of the mist between the trees.”
Although there is a lot of foreboding in the novella – the rain, the lack of phone signal, a traumatised soldier living in the woods, people with serious health concerns – there is a lot of humour too. The young couple trying to achieve simultaneous orgasms while one of them self-censors her less-than-woke fantasies made me laugh:
“You can’t expect a man to give you an orgasm if you keep thinking about particulates and genocides.”
It is resolutely a novel of its time, with references to Brexit and the pandemic (which is why they are all holidaying in Britain) but these elements felt well-integrated and while they will place the story I don’t think they will date it.
I think my reservation about Summerwater was the ending. It felt unnecessarily dramatic, as if Moss didn’t have enough faith in the rounded portraits and complex relationships she’d expertly created to let them play out and be enough. Although foreshadowed lightly, the ending didn’t feel integrated within the rest of the story. But there was still so much to recommend this novella and I’m looking forward to catching up on the Sarah Moss novels I’ve yet to read.
“She’s always liked thinking about birds and stars more than actually looking at them”
madame bibi lophile recommends 
Yeah… I was expecting more from this. It was ok, interesting enough, but it just lacked that indefinable something….
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I did enjoy it but I wished the ending had been stronger, I think it could have pulled it all together and had more impact. Although I’ve no suggestions as to what such an ending should be!
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To quote from my review “Not a dreadful, crushing disappointment, more of a wet weekend sort of a disappointment and a mild irritation that it didn’t meet my expectations and I could have spent my time reading something more interesting.”
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I liked the way the ending suggested that we often see bits of other peoples’ lives and don’t see why they act the way they do or what happens to them because of the one action we see them take. I’m a sucker for the “pull back the camera lens” trope at the end of a closely examined fiction.
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That’s really interesting Jeanne, thanks for sharing your experience of reading this. I think I generally prefer the close examination, maybe that’s why the ending didn’t work so well for me. I’ll have to think about it some more.
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I’ve often wanted to try Moss (though cannot separate her from Sarah Hall, whom I also haven’t read) – but I have to confess I find the bits you’ve quoted quite annoying stylistically… I wonder if I’d get used to that quickly, or if it would be an obstacle.
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I also get the two of them confused Simon! And because I’d had a bit of a mixed experience with Hall I avoided Moss for a while…
This one is quite stylised, I suppose it would be a case of giving it a few pages and seeing if it works? I did prefer Ghost Wall though.
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I’m the same as Simon when it comes to Moss and Hall (sorry…) but she does sound interesting, even if the end isn’t quite there. You don’t need big dramas for a good book!
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I also get the two of them confused Kaggsy! In fact I avoided Moss for quite a time because I’d not had a good experience with Hall, before I realised my error 😀
I agree about big dramas – I would definitely have preferred a quieter ending.
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I’ve wanted to read this for awhile and from your review I think it sounds a lot of fun! It’s a good point about not having enough faith in your story and so bringing in an overly dramatic ending, that’s made me look forward to it even more!
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I really hope you enjoy it Jane! It’s not a comic novel at all, but I do think she’s witty and some of the portraits did make me smile. I’ll be really interested to hear how you find it.
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I agree with you about the ending of this one. It felt too melodramatic and rushed to me, and I was left feeling a bit disillusioned with the whole novel as a result. Ghost Wall was terrific, and I’m still interested to see what she does going forward, but this was a somewhat mixed experience for me. You’ve captured it well, I think.
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It sounds like we had a very similar experience with this Jacqui. I agree I’m still really interested to see what she does though, because Ghost Wall was great.
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I’ve started this but never actually finished it. I struggled to get connected to the characters and I ended up putting it to one side because I had reading deadlines and then never got back to it. I shall finish it though, given it’s length!
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I hope you enjoy it on your return Janet! It’s almost stream of consciousness which I always find a struggle if I’m not in the right mood.
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An author I’ve come across but not read yet; it sounds as if she’s captured the different characters and the tensions playing out well; pity the ending was taken too far but it does sound enjoyable overall.
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Yes I definitely enjoyed it overall. There’s so much to recommend it but for me the ending didn’t feel right. She’s an excellent writer though.
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This is one, I have thought I might like to read before. It sounds so evocative of time and place.
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It really is! The rainy holiday park is so well evoked. I hope you enjoy it if you get to it Ali.
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I enjoyed the tension that she sustained throughout – the sense that tragedy could happen anywhere – but the ending was a bit disappointing.
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Yes I found the same. I’m not sure what I wanted the ending to be, but this one jarred a bit for me and didn’t seem to ring quite true.
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Ha, another one we’ll have to disagree on, I fear – I abandoned this after I realised she was far more interested in bodily functions than I ever will be… 😉
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Having stayed in one of those static caravan type things with the wafer-thin partitions I can vouch that you are suddenly much more aware of bodily functions than ever before! But I appreciate this scene-setting is not the most appealing read 😀
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