Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss – Unsettling and Dark

Sarah Moss has been a favourite ever since I read my first novel by her, The Tidal Zone. It was brilliant; I still love it and I whole heartedly recommend it. It was one of those books that once you finish reading, you yearn to read everything else written by the author. So when the news of her next novel was announced, I was thrilled.

The atmosphere

Silvie and her parents join a Professor and his students in an experimental archaeology camp in Northumberland where there is a recreated Iron-age-village. Silvie’s father loves to know the ways of the land and is brutally passionate about recreating the Iron age (scratchy clothes, dislike towards sanitary products because ‘women survived without them anyway back then’, women doing the weaving and cooking tasks etc). He is an abusive man who likes to be in control. Silvie is attracted to the only female student in the group, Molly. The story talks of a Bog girl who is killed by those she loves and soon enough Silvie’s story seems to be bending towards that of the Bog girl.

The good

I loved how the characters seemed to be so layered with each page of the book. The story was a quiet and unsettling read when towards the end the plot takes a turn suddenly leaving you suffocated and trapped. You just want to get out of it but you are worried about Silvie so you have to read and find out. It was a remarkable way of telling a story.

Another aspect I found particularly endearing is how the reader needs to be as involved as the protagonist in the story. There is no drama, no big revelations, however there is a lot of assimilation that happens as we go deeper in the story. For a long time I thought Silvie must be ten or eleven years old only to realise she is much older and thinking back, that’s because of the way her father orders her around and she, unlike a usual teenager, does not rebel or answer back.

I also enjoyed how big revelations were told in a seemingly calm tone by the narrator (She has got a new bruise) which in my opinion shocks the reader in a more severe way. The build up of the atmosphere – the heat and the forced Iron age rules were a good accompaniment to what follows later in the book.

Hiccups

If you are fussy about quotation marks for dialogues, Ghost Wall might disappoint you. In fact when I first picked the book to read, a few months ago, I was irked and put it down. But recently I read Normal People by Sally Rooney (fabulous, btw) which again had no quotation marks and I knew I was in the right mind to tackle Ghost Wall. I was a bit disappointed by how Sylvie gives out information (about chemistry or photosynthesis etc) when it isn’t needed. As much as this is part of Sylvie’s character, I found it to be bear a close resemblance to the elder child in Night Waking and the teenage daughter in The Tidal Zone; so it felt repetitive.

Final Verdict

A short and gripping read. This is the story of a young girl in an unhappy family. It is also the story of gender, abuse of power, class and forced acceptance. Sarah Moss as usual, does not disappoint the reader.
Trigger warning : Abuse though not explicit; skinning of animals.

If you enjoyed this novel, you might love Claire Fuller’s Our Endless Numbered days which is about a father who takes his daughter away to the woods to lead a secluded life and the psychological impact on the child because of the make-believe world the father has constructed. Another good book, very different in tone (more graphic and faster paced) is Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed which explores gender issues and abuse of power in a patriarchal cult.

Title : Ghost wall
Author : Sarah Moss
Publisher : Granta
Publication: 2018
Language : English
Pages : 160
Rating : 4/5

Disclaimer : Much thanks to the publisher for the book. All opinions are my own.