Summerwater is the first novel by Sarah Moss that I have read; it won’t be the last. Set in a Scottish campsite populated by cabins which have been handed down through family generations, Moss sites her novel over a period of twenty-four hours in mid-summer. Subdivided into alternating longer and very much shorter sections, the book recounts how that one day, rain sodden as only a British summer day can be, is spent by the people staying on the site and, in the shorter sections, the wildlife that inhabits the surrounding woodland. We follow the attempts by members of each generation to fill the wet, isolated hours when even to set foot over the threshold is to be soaked to the skin. There is the elderly couple having to face the fact that she is slowly descending into some form of dementia; the young couple with two small children trying to find ways to amuse them cooped up in what seems to be a little more than a wooden box; the lovers planning married life on an isolated island for which this must seem like some sort of trial preparation and the teenagers, desperate without their social networking, fighting for independence with every breath.

What has brought these people to what, on this particular day, might well be called a God forsaken place? Moss seems to suggest that it is ingrained habit. These families have spent their holidays sequestered away in these selfsame wooden cabins summer after summer. It is what they do; it has become who they are. And this notion of ourselves as creatures driven by ways of being that have been handed down and reinforced year in and year out seems to me to be at the heart of what Sarah Moss is concerned with.

Some of these habits are relatively new, inasmuch as they have only been part of family life over one, two or three generations. Some are still in the process of being laid down - in one instance quite literally. ‘Zanzibar’ introduces us to Josh and Milly, the young couple who are intending to marry and moved to the island of Barra.

They are trying to have simultaneous orgasms.

If we can learn how to do it, Josh says, we will be like a hundred times more likely not to get divorced. I read about it.
So they are practising; they are trying to build a habit.

Much of Summerwater is heart wrenching, but not ‘Zanzibar‘, which we experience through Millie’s eyes as she tries hard not to judge [Josh’s] facial expressions nor to think about bacon sandwiches to pass the time.  I found myself repeatedly laughing out loud. It’s a sign of Moss’s excellent pacing that she knows just went to offer the reader some light relief and also a sign of the control she has over her material that when we meet the couple again, this time through Josh’s eyes, we realise that what he is actually trying to do is save the relationship, recognising that he has the habit of living in a small island community but Millie does not.

Habits are built over a lifetime and while they can be very useful in as much as they save us time where every day occurrences are concerned, they can also bind us and leave us tied to repetitive ways of living that have ceased to serve us well. And, some habits, some ways of thinking, some ways of reacting, are built over far longer stretches than one single being’s existence. This is perhaps revealed most strongly in the shorter sections which deal with the natural world that also inhabits this campsite and its surrounds. For me, the point is made most tellingly in always wolves, a bare dozen lines in which a doe, protecting her fawn, steps nervously out of the trees.

In her mind there are always wolves, day and night, a pack of them slinking on the edge of scent and sound. They creep nearer when she sleeps, when she and the fawn bow  their heads to drink, when the trees cluster to make hiding places.
Here is a creature who can never have encountered a wolf, but the herd memory, the fear instilled in generation after generation of her kind, still controls her reactions and informs her way of life. And the same is true of the human inhabitants of the campsite. They bring with them their ingrained fear, passed down from father to son, of those whose habits and way of life are different from theirs, a fear which manifests itself in the shape of distrust, dislike, anger and violence.  And, if Summerwater has a fault, for me it is in the ending, which exploits this fear and gives it concrete shape. It seems too sudden, too definite, for a book which has thus far dealt in less direct means of communication. But this is to quibble. The quality of the writing and of the act of creation, where both atmosphere and characters are concerned, seems to me to be outstanding. This is certainly one of the best novels I have read so far this year.

With thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the review copy.

Summerwater is a beautifully written observation of a single drizzly day.

It’s told through the multi-stranded, unremarkable routines of its characters, and the relationships (or lack of) that exist in this little ‘fish bowl’ community in the highlands become its one and only focus.

Everyone resolutely respects the private spaces of their handful of neighbours, preferring to assume and judge from their own bubble rather than physically interact.

The melancholy stream of life trickles throughout the narration. Some themes will feel familiar to most, yet many of the claustrophobic trivialities featured will lead to catastrophic implications that no one could envision.

There’s no denying that every passage was sublime, the ending affecting, and those subtle, incidental chapters featuring the surrounding flora and fauna were well placed. These seemingly unconnected perspectives provide both contrast and symmetry with the human occupation near isolated burrows and undergrowth, while the ever-present danger lies in wait.

I’m pretty sure you can tell I adored the writing. However, I found the pace slow going in places and certain chapters overstayed their welcome a little more than others. Would 100% read this author again though.

Sarah Moss is fantastic at creating really believable characters and she's done it again in this slice of life novel set in a Scottish cabin park. The drama comes from the different perspectives of all the inhabitants of these cabins and the judgements they make of each other. The tension slowly builds to a really powerful ending.

A story happened on one single day at a loch in Scotland. Twelve families respectively couples are spending their holidays up there. It's a rainy and boring day. The story is told from all the different perspectives on this day.
Everyone perceived the others somehow. Over all these descriptions a tension built up and leads into a catastrophe.
Again Sarah Moss has written a very atmospheric novel which starts very slowly and ends dramatically.

A dated set of holiday cabins somewhere near a loch in Scotland provides the setting for Sarah Moss’s novel Summerwater. There’s no technology, no wifi , no entertainment, no distraction from the fact that almost all of the people who find themselves on holiday in that place wish they were somewhere else.

The endless Scottish summer rain serves to reveal and expose the characters’ innermost feelings in Summerwater. The novel is not so much driven by action or by an intricate plot, but the narrative style is extraordinary. Sarah Moss vividly and believably translates her characters’ thoughts and emotions into the written word – it is so authentic that I sometimes felt she just took these streams of consciousness out of my own head and wrote them down. What’s even more of an achievement – she succeeds to do so with every character, no matter if it’s the retired doctor, the young woman, who feels unsure about the prospect of marriage, the teenage boy… When it comes to introspection, Summerwater certainly ranks among the best pieces of literature specializing in that writing technique. Furthermore, Moss creates links between her character, they become objects of thought or observation in each other’s narrative – thus, Summerwater distinctly feels like a kaleidoscope or mosaic of human interaction.

I absolutely enjoyed reading the novel, although I have to admit that the ending felt forced and out of proportion. As the novel as such is rather a calm contemplation of feelings and human psychology, I would have preferred a more subdued outcome.

3 and a half stars rounded down to 3.

The action in this novella takes place on a summer day of incessant rain which gives an overall sense of opression. It is written in sections divided by descriptions of aspects of the natural world. The point of view of a variety of characters is given in a stream of consciousness style.
I thought that some of characters came over in a really authentic way and liked the humour in some and the sense of pathos and futility in others. I felt that all of the characters were trapped, not just by the rain, but by their relationships and circumstances. I found the dramatic ending a bit frustrating. Although there are hints in the earlier sections I felt that it left too many unanswered questions.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC.

I love Sarah Moss's writing and this was no exception. Loved this book, very gripping and lyrical.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

This book has secured Sarah Moss as one of my all-time favourite writers - I loved it so much. Over the course of one incredibly rainy day in a holiday park in the Scottish highlands, we hear from all the different people on their slightly disappointing holidays as they reflect on their relationships, worry about the future and watch the people in the other cabins. In between the everyday worries of the characters, Moss weaves in little vignettes of the natural world which evoke a strong sense of place and history, in a writing style that is mesmerising and unsettling.

What impressed me most about this book was how well Sarah Moss just gets her characters, writing them with such empathy and humour. I went on a lot of wet Scottish holidays as a child and there are moments in this book that could have been transcribed from my memories of whining about being made to go out in the rain to soak up some vitamin D. The narration is almost a stream of consciousness, making you feel trapped in the characters’ heads, watching their thoughts and waiting for something to happen, like they are watching the people around them, waiting for a movement or a reason to disapprove.

Even though this seems like an innocent, nondescript day, Moss leaves little morsels of wrongness across the narrative, then forces your eyes onto more normality before you have a chance to really question what’s going on. As the characters watch until they are uncomfortable, convincing themselves that it’s really none of their business, you are led through the day with the knowledge that a conflict is coming, unable to fully believe the danger until the inevitable disaster strikes.

In places the characters felt a little homogenous (I mean they are almost entirely white middle-class Brits with a fear of the unknown) and I forgot which children belonged to which parents a couple of times. But I know this book will stick itself to me and refuse to leave my thoughts, just like Ghost Wall did in 2018. Sarah Moss has proven to me again that she really can write a tiny novel that leaves me reeling and in awe of what she can achieve in such a small number of words.


Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the review copy.

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Summerwater is slim book which immediately drew me to it because of it’s beautiful cover and its thoroughly intriguing premise.
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This book is essentially a collection of individual stories by different characters holidaying at a park next to a Scottish Loch, whose lives are brought together in the concluding pages. But it is also so much more than that! It had me sniggering and chortling from the beginning; as Moss cleverly and humorously examined and laid bare some of the inhabitants’ traits and behaviours. It was definitely one of those books which had me itching to whip out the highlighter!
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The language used throughout, is so perfectly poetic; so lyrical and beautiful and of a calibre that should be read aloud and proudly. I particularly enjoyed Moss’s razor sharp observation of the nature surrounding the Loch. The connection of the characters and the story to the immediate environment vibrated strongly throughout the book and the link and closeness and intensity of the flora and fauna to the goings on really added to the building tension.
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Without giving too much away, the individual tales weave together and culminate in a final explosive chapter. Dramatic isn’t strong enough to describe the shock waves that emanate from Moss’s final words in the book; without warning she unapologetically plunges everything into darkness and I was genuinely left gobsmacked and felt as if I’d been punched in the face (but in a good way 😉). To say the ending was unexpected would be a complete understatement!
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Painfully clever, stunningly sharp and oozing nature’s beauty and menace; Summerwater is the book that gave me literary whiplash and I’ll be thinking about it for a long, long time.

🏞Summerwater by Sarah Moss🏞⁣⁣
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𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪-𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨⁣
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I am so totally over the moon that I finally get to talk about this AMAZING book. I read it back in April (which thanks to coronavirus feels like a decade ago) and have kept quiet because I didn’t want to promote it too early but it’s due out on the 20th August and it’s feels like the right time to shout about it!!⁣
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This is story-telling at its absolute best. Summerwater is set on a Scottish holiday park and in each of its 12 chapters we meet the different people residing in the cabins. It builds to a devastating conclusion and leaves you thinking incredibly deeply about the way in which we as humans are so quick to judge others. ⁣
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I spent most of the book just marvelling at Moss’s ability to establish characters within mere sentences- each voice so very distinctive and believable. So much of the book resonated with me and I found it so absorbing and engaging that I struggled to put it down. It’s very much a ‘oh just one more chapter’ story!! I’m desperate for others to read it so I can talk about it and I also think it will be one I re-read in the future (and this is a real rarity for me) I want to experience it all over again.⁣
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I’ve got Sarah Moss’ backlist on order now- I’m particularly excited for The Tidal Zone- do expect to see her name pop up on her in the future. ⁣
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Thank you to @bookbreakuk for gifting me this proof copy and putting into my hands one of my top 3 reads of the year. I am so grateful!⁣
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Short and powerful. 10+ strangers in a Scottish holiday camp. Rain, feelings and a lot of inner thoughts. Loved every minute of this book.

There is a reflection of Ghost Wall in this book, bits and pieces of people and racism, but I think overall I loved this one better than Ghost Wall.

Doesn't have a traditional plot structure, but every chapter is well thought and well connected. I think Moss is a clever mind. This is a book that you have to read and try to understand each sentence, as she is leaving us breadcrumbs of the map of characters and events she's driving to a tragic end.

The ending might be the weakest thing in the book, but this is my personal opinion, I found it a bit too sudden, but perhaps if it was longer it wouldn't be as effective? Can't really decide. I still loved it.

Powerful & Sublime. The stream of consciousness was something I thought I may dislike, but this novel made me want to read other novels in this style now.

This book, is exceptionally beautiful and it reads lucid. The author has given her best in transforming her words into sheer pieces of art

This story follows the lives of 12 guests over one day , they are all holidaying in the Scottish Highlands at a remote holiday park. There isn't a lot to do and the weather is so bad. Not a lot happens in the book but don't let that put you off at all , the descriptions and emotions of the characters and the area that they are in is really evocative. Its a quick read , beautifully descriptive I thoroughly recommend it.

Following the thoughts of twelve characters, adults and children, as they ‘endure’ a rainy day in the Scottish highlands. The story is set in a holiday park, and there is little else to do other than watch what the other people around are doing. It is a very atmospheric novella, and the fact that I was reading this on a wet summer day in the Scottish highlands certainly added to my sense of place.
Sarah Moss does a wonderful job of building tension within a story where very little happens, the writing is evocative and deep, it kept my interest and I read over the course of an afternoon. There is little in the way of plot, yet it is obvious that something is just around the corner, it builds slowly to an ending I certainly did not see coming.

King’s tower and queen’s bower,
And weed and reed in the gloom;
And a lost city in Semmerwater,
Deep asleep till Doom.

I read Sarah Moss’s latest novel, Summerwater, in a couple of sittings on a rainy Saturday. It was the perfect way to experience this short, clever novel, which skips between the perspectives of twelve holidaymakers staying on a holiday resort in rural Scotland on a single, torrentially rainy day. Most have been kept up the night before by loud music played by a Ukrainian family, and their hell is now continuing as the weather refuses to relent. Moss’s depiction of this bleak resort is both deeply personal and panoramic. We are completely immersed in the stream-of-consciousness narrative of a young woman trying to have a simultaneous orgasm with her fiancee and being continuously distracted by everything else that’s on her mind, and in the frantic thoughts of a mother who wants to make the most of having an hour to herself while her husband takes the children for a paddle. However, as Moss shifts perspectives, we see how small details that sit in the background of certain narratives, such as a child’s abandoned shoe, take on new meaning in others. There are also short omniscient sections that relate the natural history of this place; as with Jon McGregor’s employment of a similar technique in Reservoir 13, this attempt to connect the human, animal and mineral worlds didn’t work for me, but it only makes up a tiny proportion of the novel.

Summerwater demonstrates Moss’s versatility as a writer; she is equally convincing as an elderly woman suffering memory problems and as a teenage boy getting into trouble in a kayak. Indeed, I thought the two sections narrated by teenagers were two of the strongest in this novel. Moss’s The Tidal Zone proved how good she is at writing about adolescence, and I was pleased to see that carried over when writing as an adolescent. She makes a deliberate choice not to narrate from the perspective of any of the Ukrainian characters; I wondered if, given that they are positioned as a disruptive influence in the resort because of their relentless music, it might have helped to get more from their point of view. But on the other hand, I can see how keeping them silent reinforces some of the other things Moss wants to say about xenophobia, and the stories that others impose on this family (they are intermittently referred to as ‘Poles’, ‘Romanians’ or just ‘Eastern Europeans’, and subtle prejudice threads its way through a number of the characters’ internal monologues).

Summerwater is troubled by something that’s never quite in sight, lending it a tension that carries us through to a thematically ambiguous ending – although there may be clues in the poem that one of the characters half-remembers, ‘The Ballad of Semmerwater’, which recounts the story of a town drowned beneath a lake because of the unkindness of its richest citizens. As with Ghost Wall, I wasn’t sure that Moss left herself quite enough space to deliver the punch she wanted, and wished that the final scene had been further developed; but the last lines are completely haunting. This is definitely top-tier Moss, and I hope it gets the recognition it deserves (though I feel like I say that every time she publishes something new).

Set over one 24 hour period at a holiday park in Scotland. Summerwater tells the stories of the couples and families staying at the holiday park.
I loved this book and read it in just over a day. In some ways nothing happens until the last few pages but there is a sense throughout that something is impending and you are constantly thinking ‘is this it?’
Would definitely recommend this and I’m now going to hunt out Sarah Moss as an author

This is an unusual book, with the whole novel being told in streams of consciousness from about 10 different characters. All of them are holidaying in a holiday park in Scotland and we get a little snippet of what is going on around them and in their heads in fairly short chapters. The book takes place over the course of one day and is very well done, with the endless rain and the endless boredom of many of the characters!

It's a quick read and although I wouldn't have thought I would like the stream of consciousness style, it actually worked really well and the characters seemed different enough to make it easy to distinguish between them. There is also crossover with one character mentioning another we have already met, which also worked well and helped to give the book a cohesive feel despite the different voices.

In summary: different and enjoyable.

Rainy summer day in a faded Scottish cabin park. Twelve people in their stream of thoughts. Until someone starts to draw their attention. Tensions everywhere, tragedy is on a horizon.

So well written, raw and realistic.
Brilliant.

Who would have thought a novel about several unrelated families spending a soggy holiday in a set of lodges in Scotland could tell you so much about the state of the nation?

Don't be fooled because for all of Summerwater's interpersonal insights this is an astute state-of-the-nation novel. Moss brings together a diverse and disparate set of characters who don't really come together as inhabit the same space in their own silos. We see an elderly couple reminiscing on how the world has changed during their lives, we see a young couple contemplating the state of contemporary politics and their future together, we see young families and the imbalances that still pervade society in gender roles, we see children finding their voices and parroting the views of their parents without understanding them.

Moss is artful in how she achieves this, drawing you into interior, personal lives, with such vibrant and distinct voices. Hearing from each character separately leaves a real sense of frustration - why can't they just talk to each other? But of course that's easy for us to say, invading their perspectives and knowing how they feel, and the more of this novel you read the more you realise that you are just as guilty as these characters of living in your own headspace and failing to communicate with those around you. We can't help it any more than Moss' characters can.

As with it's predecessor Ghost Wall, this is an incredible short and concise novel which captures so much and will leave you thinking long after you leave it. Moss manages to cover the personal, interpersonal, social, political, environmental, not to mention class, xenophobia, climate change, sexism and gender roles. You almost wish she'd written more just to get further under the skin and unpack all of this, but the beauty of her writing is that she leaves you to understand and comprehend what plays out without having to explain it all to you.

From the get go this is a profoundly sad novel, manipulating your emotions, and just when you get what you wished for, when these characters living their separate lives begin to come together, Moss packs a punch that you would never have seen coming, despite the fact that there were several warnings, hidden away throughout the book. This complex and ambiguous ending makes you wonder what Moss really means here. Is this a punishment for wishful thinking? Perhaps a sign that despite the positive strides we are all doomed anyway? In my opinion it's about life being messy. Real life doesn't come with a neat conclusion and bow-tied moral and neither does Summerwater. In a pandemic constrained summer filled with staycations and seemingly just as much rain as this book, Summerwater feels terrifyingly relevant and will be the standout book of the season.

Each family is staying in an owned, rented, or borrowed cabin in the Trossachs in Scotland. None of them find it very exciting, nor are they extremely satisfied with their lives. You read about the quiet acceptance of an elderly couple, the concessions a woman makes for a happy marriage, and the very much needed (and taken) alone time of another. They often think about things they could have done differently or a passion that is missing from their life. They all chose to spend the holiday in an isolated area, far from the crowds, but end up feeling too close to the ones they came with.

The temporary residents also watch each other as there is not much else to do. Rain doesn’t stop them from going out; most are used to it. If you let the rain stop you from doing what you like, then you’re missing out on making the most of your time in Scotland, where it often rains.

Just like the guests watch each other, kids watch and copy everyone. You can see it in how they treat ‘foreigners’. Those very people that you want to know more about, but aren’t given their own voice in Summerwater. Instead, they play music, until it stops and they are silent once again.

“Under the hedges, in the hollows of tall trees, birds droop and wilt, grounded, waiting. Small creatures in their burrows nose the air and stay hungry. There will be deaths by morning.” The chapters about people are intertwined with those about animals and nature. The animals sense what’s coming first. From them you get a foreboding, a warning that the reader understands but the narrators do not.

I’m not very fond of this book. The potential is there, but I couldn’t bond with most of the narrators. Their parts are too short and too much in the now to get to know them well. For me this was very unlike how I perceived And the Wind Sees All, a book set in Iceland that also gives a voice to many different narrators.

I’m not saying the narrators in Summerwater don’t have their charm; the situations and struggles are very realistic, just that the combination of the format of the story, the personalities of the narrators, and the thoughts of the narrators didn’t work for me.