Ripeness
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Pan Macmillan
Published:22nd May '25
Should be back in stock very soon
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback - Signed Edition£20.00(9781529035490-S)
From the bestselling author of Summerwater comes Sarah Moss's best novel yet: a story of love, loss and belonging that moves between 1960s Italy and modern day Ireland.
From the bestselling author of Summerwater comes a story of love, loss and belonging that moves between 1960s Italy and modern day Ireland.
From 1960s Italy to present-day Ireland, Ripeness is a haunting, luminous tale of love, grief, and the lifelong search for where we truly belong, from Sarah Moss, bestselling author of Summerwater.
'Moss makes every moment count' - The Sunday Times
'The achievement of a lifetime' - Jessie Burton
'A book of lasting pleasures' - Eleanor Catton
'A powerful and beautifully written story of family, friendship and identity' - Guardian
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 child 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 unexpectedly free. But when her friend Méabh receives a call from a stranger claiming to be her brother, everything shifts. As Méabh confronts a history she never knew she had, Edith is pulled back into the long-buried story of the baby she once held, and lost.
'Tender and rueful . . . Sarah Moss is a marvel of insight and eloquence' - Emma Donoghue
'One of our greatest living writers' - Katherine May, author of Wintering
Praise for Sarah Moss:
'Throws much contemporary writing into the shade' - Hilary Mantel
‘One of our very best contemporary novelists’ - Independent
'A brilliant mind' - The Guardian
'Moss has quietly been putting out some of the most interesting and carefully sculpted novels of recent years' - Financial Times
'One of the finest contemporary writers working in Britain today' - Stylist
'Is Sarah Moss the best British writer never nominated for the Booker?' - Daily Mail
'Nothing escapes her sly humour and brilliant touch' - Jessie Burton
'The most brilliant writer. She deserves to win all the prizes' - Joanna Trollope
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
I devoured Ripeness, thrilling at the world Moss brings to life and the characters who inhabit it. What a delicious novel * Literary Review *
The sublime author Sarah Moss returns with Ripeness . . . Glorious * Vogue *
Impressive * The Independent *
Aluminous tale about borders, bodies and a sense of belonging -- Thomas McMullan, Financial Times
Sarah Moss is a master of the ticking clock. Her novels thrum with tension . . . as the climax rushes towards us, Moss makes every moment count * The Sunday Times *
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
Beautifully crafted . . . absorbing and moving * Daily Mail *
An extended meditation on what home or belonging might mean in a period of disruption and displacement . . . Moss perfectly judges the prickly absolutism of the younger Edith . . . unfailingly spare and alert . . . captivating * The Irish Times *
Evocative . . . Immensely moving - and this story feels very much like life . . . This novel lingers so strongly in the mind * Harper's Bazaar *
A powerful and beautifully written story of family, friendship and identity * The Guardian *
An expansive, expressive tale of family, history and ballet, this is illuminated by pin-sharp imagery and rueful self-awareness * Mail on Sunday *
An insightful examination of family ties and belonging. * The Economist *
There’s no shortage of gifted writers who have never had a sniff of a major prize. The English novelist Sarah Moss, now based in Dublin, is such an obvious example of this . . . Moss’ new novel, Ripeness, might fix that * The Critic *
ISBN: 9781529035490
Dimensions: 243mm x 163mm x 29mm
Weight: 504g
304 pages