After a break last year, I’ve decided to return to my novella a day project in May. I always try and give myself a head start of a few posts and I’ve not managed as many as I would have liked this year, so we’ll see how it goes… My TBR is ridiculous so if I can stick to this, it will hopefully help!
The Fell – Sarah Moss (2021) 180 pages
I wasn’t really in the market for a pandemic novel, but I was so impressed by the previous novellas I’d read by Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall and Summerwater (particularly the former) that I decided to give The Fell a try.
This novella is reminiscent of Summerwater, written just a year earlier, in its use of multiple viewpoints. There is no direct speech but the story progresses from the points of view of Kate, a furloughed waitress; her teenage son Matt; their elderly neighbour Alice; and local volunteer Rob.
Kate and Matt have been told to self-isolate in their cottage in the Peak District, having been exposed to someone with Covid-19 infection. Kate is really struggling, while her son is more stoical:
“I know, she said, I’m making a fuss, I just find this really hard, I knew I would. Not, he thought, as hard as getting sick, not as hard as Deepak’s dad who was in Intensive Care for three weeks or the grandparents of kids in his class who’ve died this year or his maths teacher who’s back at work but can’t get enough breath for sentence half of the time, compared to that doing the garden instead of going up the fells is actually quite manageable, so how about he games and she does yoga the garden and they hope neither of them starts with the fever and loss of taste and smell.”
But Kate breaks the isolation, risking spreading the disease, a £10,000 fine or imprisonment, in order to go for a walk on the fell. She doesn’t take her phone with her and she reasons she won’t see anyone up there anyway.
“Damp, not quite raining. Keep moving, get warm. The relief of it, being out, being alone, starting to warm up from her own effort, wind and sky in her lungs, raindrops on her face, weather.”
Alice, her neighbour who is classed as extremely vulnerable due to her cancer diagnosis, sees Kate go.
“Self-isolating, one of those horrible new nonsensical phrases. Social distancing, whoever came up with that […] medical distance, they should call it, or why not just safe distance, and when did ‘distance’ become a verb? Language is also infected. Return, George Orwell, England has need of thee.”
Alice was my favourite character, baking biscuits and worrying about her weight, blasting out tunes to cheer herself up, and refusing any self-pity:
“More Springsteen, there’s a reason they don’t write protest anthems about well-off retired people feeling a bit sad.”
The pandemic means that as well as isolation and frailty, she also has to contend with Zoom calls with her daughter’s family:
“Sometimes Alice thinks she’d rather have a Radio 4 podcast than Susie with her dinner.”
Kate’s walk doesn’t go according to plan, and she ends up stranded with one, possibly two broken limbs. Rob and his team of volunteer Mountain Rescue therefore have to risk themselves coming together to try and find her, and Matt is old enough and astute enough to pick up the police’s hinting questions as they try and ascertain whether Kate is a suicide risk.
All this means Kate is not a sympathetic character, but her harsh self-judgement and realisation of the impact of what she has done portrays her as a flawed human who took a really bad decision. And now she is being haunted by a raven:
“Go away, Kate thinks, bugger off. Are you a spirit guide or my mother? Oh God what if it’s both.”
Five years on from the time portrayed, and surely written very close to it for a publication date of 2021, The Fell has aged well. It captures a lot from the pandemic, and certainly reminded me about elements of daily life then which I had largely forgotten. However, it is not beholden to its pandemic setting. The characterisation is strong enough that it is a story of four people bound together psychologically by an extreme situation, while remaining entirely physically separated. It explores what survival means for different people, and the prices paid for endurance.
“You’d just sometimes rather have dark conviction than the appalling uncertainty of hope.”
madame bibi lophile recommends 
I’m delighted you are doing this again! I always get great ideas for November. I read this back in 2021 and didn’t enjoy it because it was all too close. I appreciated the writing but I just couldn’t enjoy reading about Covid. I’d say it would be different if I read it now.
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Thanks so much Cathy!
What you say makes total sense, I definitely couldn’t have read this in 2021. I still had a bit of trepidation picking it up now, but because it was Sarah Moss, and it was short, I thought I’d give it a try.
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I sometimes think we forget how traumatising that whole time was!
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This is the most dangerous challenge as far as my TBR list is concerned but I’m sending you all good wishes for a happy reading month! Luckily I’ve already read The Fell and found the reminders of covid times extraordinary, I had practically forgotten everything about the rules and the complexity of them; but as you say it’s about more than that and a terrific read.
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Thank you Jane 🙂
Yes, I was really surprised how much I’d forgotten about the regulations. Great to hear you liked this one too – it does surpass the premise.
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I didn’t realize that people there couldn’t even go for a walk outdoors. Here, we were encouraged to go outside and exercise, just to stay away from other people.
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Yes, it was if you had an exposure alert, you couldn’t leave home for 2 weeks. So the characters here could go into their private garden, but nowhere else outside.
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Oh my gosh. How awful.
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Hurrah, I’m glad you’re doing the challenge this year! I bought this, gave it to a charity shop when I discovered it didn’t have speech marks, and finally listened to the audiobook. I think I felt quite lukewarm about it, but your review makes me wonder if I should try again sometime.
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There’s no reason to persevere through a lack of speech marks 😁 usually I’m not keen on such a choice either, but for some reason I didn’t mind it here.
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Hurrah, so glad you’re doing this Madame B – will follow with interest although my TBR may not thank you… As for Moss, I’ve not read her but can see the appeal of this. Still not quite sure if I’m ready to read about COVID, though…
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Thanks Kaggsy! I wasn’t sure about covid either, but I thought as this was short and I liked the author I could try it. Not sure I’d want to read a full-length novel yet…
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Good luck – you can do this! You haven’t tempted me today but I’m interested to see how many you add to my wishlist this year…
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Thanks FF! I’ll do my best to increase your TBR 😁
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I liked this one rather well. The new Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also opens in this time period (but perhaps shifts, I’m not too far into it) and has a similar energy to it. Good luck with your month’s reading. Books this length and this engaging should work out well for you!
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Thanks Marcie – fingers crossed!
I’ve really fallen behind with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I hope you enjoy her latest.
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I read her memoir of living in Iceland and didn’t take to her, so haven’t read any of her books (I know I claim I subscribe to reader response theory and this shouldn’t really work!). I wonder if we’re far enough away to make this a possible read now. I salute you doing a book a day, I was going to read all your reviews but I’ve fallen behind with blog reading so consider yourself congratulated and your reviews read and I’ll comment if I can!
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Thanks so much Liz 😁
I’ve not read her memoir, I can imagine the voice might be different to her novels. But sometimes for whatever reason we just don’t click with a writer and there’s no need to pursue reads we don’t enjoy, with our TBRs calling us…!
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I am a huge Sarah Moss fan and read this one soon after it came out, perhaps a bit too soon after the events described, so I didn’t love it as much as other works by her. I remember hearing her talk about this, how she herself became nearly mad with self-isolation at some point.
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Good to hear how much you rate her Marina! I don’t think I could have read this when it came out but I was able to enjoy it now. That’s really interesting to hear about how she found the isolation when her work is so solitary. But I guess having any choice and flexibility around isolation removed was such a strain.
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