Ripeness follows Anna, a British academic on a work trip to California as wildfires rage nearby. She’s away from her family, trying to focus on her research, but instead finds herself overwhelmed by climate anxiety, guilt, motherhood, and the quiet dread of midlife.

Sarah Moss does what she does best, zooms in on the small, internal dramas that so often go unnoticed. The writing is sharp and observant, full of dry humour and tension. The plot is more reflective than action-packed, and it can feel fragmented at times, but that mirrors Anna’s mental state perfectly.

A quiet, clever novel that leaves you sitting with big questions long after the last page.

'Summerwater' remains a book that I press into people's hands and say 'you must read this'. Sadly, I don't think that I can do the same with this. Yes, Moss is a wonderful writer, but I just couldn't connect with the characters in this at all and found myself skim-reading bits just to get to the end.

For some reason I just didn't click with what the author was trying to do. Wonderful prose, but not for me. 3.5 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

The meaning of life and the fruits of knowledge
—
The universal definition of ripeness, when a thing is ready for consumption, threads through this contemplative book, falling into place in the last chapter, on the last word (Yes, if you’re curious).

In the present day Edith, in her seventies and living in rural Ireland, looks back on her seventeen year old self, in rural Italy at the tail end of summer at her pregnant sister’s side, ordered to help with the adoption of the baby. Older Edith has lived for many years in Ireland, but has four different passports and is still regarded as the English emigré. When her friend Méabh reveals that a unknown older brother has reached out, Edith considers what justice there can be when a stranger can, by the bonds of mere DNA, claim citizenship where she will forever be alien.

Meanwhile, in Edith recollection of her younger self, she has to deal with her distant older sister Lydia whose pregnancy is wholly unplanned, and is simply an impediment to Lydia’s returning to her vocation as a ballerina. When the summer finally ebbs away and Lydia’s friends return to London, Edith has to take the reins when Lydia’s pregnancy is all that connects them.

The ripeness in the book is when Edith herself is ready, ready to tell, ready to forgive. The chapters in the present, told in third person present tense, contrast with the flashbacks in first person past tense, and the reasons why are revealed at the end by how the past is being told and to whom. Edith finally finds the ripeness, the ripe time, to reveal to herself and to others what happened then, and why she is the one to tell it. She has reached a ‘ripe old age’ when others didn’t, and she is matured enough to be able to look back and tell, well, if not all, then the most pertinent and emotional parts of the past that others couldn’t even face; that the meaning of life and the fruits of knowledge reveal themselves when we are ready for them, and not before.

Four and a half stars

'Ripeness' is a magnificent novel which explores two ends of the same woman's life. As a seventeen-year-old about to go and study at Oxford in the 1960s, Edith is dispatched to a villa near Lake Como where her older sister, ballerina Lydia, is due to give birth to a baby she doesn't want. In her 70s, divorced and living on the west coast of Ireland, Edith's friend Méabh receives news of a half-brother she never knew she had living in America. Sarah Moss alternates between these two narratives - the first told in first-person and the second in third - in which Edith witnesses and reflects on mothers who have given up their children.

Motherhood looms large across this novel - in particular, Edith and Lydia's mother, a Jewish artist and Holocaust survivor who directs her daughters' lives from afar - but Moss explores a range of other big ideas with nuance and insight, including sex and consent, migration and national identity. Edith herself has four passports (French and Israeli due to her mother, English and Irish), and observes the contrasting reactions from her neighbours to the arrivals of Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers from other parts of the world. Moss also engages thoughtfully with other contemporary anxieties including the climate crisis.

I found this a novel of real emotional depth and complexity, and one of the best books I have read in 2025. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

I am a big Sarah Moss fan and was thrilled to be immersed in her beautiful and thought provoking writing once again. So much so, I took my time with this one, stretching it out to prolong my enjoyment.

The book follows a dual time line. We alternate between 17 year old Edith, in Italy supporting her sister and Edith in her 70s supporting her friend Meabh. As the story progresses we realise the relevance of the two time lines and how Edith’s experience in Italy impacts her decisions in the present day.

As always with Sarah Moss the writing is exquisite and the emotions are raw and real. It’s a story which explores family dynamics, identity and what it means to belong. It asks what it takes to be accepted into a family or community and what criteria must be met to tie us to a place and claim belonging?

A brilliant book, I enjoyed it immensely. If you haven’t discovered Sarah Moss yet, I urge you to seek her out.

This is one of those quiet, razor-sharp novels that sneaks up on you. Set over just a few days at a writers’ retreat, Ripeness is all about what's bubbling under the surface - ageing, ambition, motherhood, class, guilt, and what it means to make art when the world is falling apart.

Sarah Moss's writing continues to become richer and more accomplished, which I wouldn't have thought possible when I read The Tidal Zone. She has a keen understanding of the strangeness of being human, and the intricacies of familial relationships.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really wanted to like this novel more than I did. I liked some of the things it was saying about home being anywhere you need or want it to be, and acceptance, and family being complicated. But I felt like Moss was almost trying to tackle too much in this novel so the things got muddled in the narrative. Edith was at times quite condescending and at times I was also slightly annoyed by the time shift format being strictly one chapter per timeline as I think it might have benefitted from larger chunks. Also for a novel that references Judaism and kibbutzim regularly and also deals with the concept of refugees, the absence of any discussion of Israel and Palestine is notable.

This was a strange read for me. As always, I loved the beautiful, lyrical writing from Moss. The thing I struggled with in Ripenwss was the dual timeline. I found myself way more interested in the past timeline than the present day one and this took me out of the story each time we jumped forward in time.

However, the writing and the gorgeous travel writing made up for it.

This isn’t one I will pick up again but I see its appeal for others who are cleverer than me and can deal better with a dual timeline.

One sneaky little line “Ripeness, not readiness, is all,” a Shakespeare mash-up (“Ripeness is all” from King Lear vs. “the readiness is all” from Hamlet), gives a clue to how to understand this novel: As a work of maturity from Sarah Moss, presenting life with all its contradictions and disappointments, not attempting to counterbalance that realism with any false optimism. What do we do, who will we be, when faced with situations for which we aren’t prepared?

Now that she’s based in Ireland, Moss seems almost to be channelling Irish authors such as Claire Keegan and Maggie O’Farrell. The line-up of themes – ballet + sisters + ambivalent motherhood + the question of immigration and belonging – should have added up to something incredible and right up my street. While Ripeness is good, even very good, it feels slightly forced. As has been true with some of Moss’s recent fiction (especially Summerwater), there is the air of a creative writing experiment. Here the trial is to determine which feels closer, a first-person rendering of a time nearly 60 years ago, or a present-tense, close-third-person account of the now.

[I had in mind advice from one of Emma Darwin’s recent Substack posts: “What you’ll see is that ‘deep third’ is really much the same as first, in the logic of it, just with different pronouns: you are locking the narrative into a certain character’s point-of-view, but you don’t have a sense of that character as the narrator, the way you do in first person.”

Except, increasingly as the novel goes on, we are compelled to think about Edith as a narrator, of her own life and others’, including that of a man she has never met (except for one week when he was a newborn). “I remained more of a narrator than a participant. Self-centred to the end, you might be thinking. I am. I narrate. I make myself, in this late accounting, the main character.” This text is what she will leave behind for her nephew through her will, as executed by her son.]

In the current story line, everyone in rural West Ireland seems to have come from somewhere else (e.g. Edith’s lover Gunter is German). “She’s going to have to find a way to rise above it, this tribalism,” Edith thinks. She’s aghast at her town playing host to a small protest against immigration. Fair enough, but including this incident just seems like an excuse for some liberal handwringing (“since it’s obvious that there is enough for all, that the problem is distribution not supply, why cannot all have enough? Partly because people like Edith have too much.”). The facts of Maman being French-Israeli and having lost family in the Holocaust felt particularly shoehorned in; referencing Jewishness adds nothing. I also wondered why she set the 1960s narrative in Italy, apart from novelty and personal familiarity. (Teenage Edith’s high school Italian is improbably advanced, allowing her to translate throughout her sister’s childbirth.)

Though much of what I’ve written seems negative, I’d say I was left with an overall favourable impression. Mostly it’s that the delivery scene and the chapters that follow it are so very moving. Plus there are astute lines everywhere you look, whether on dance, motherhood, or migration. I’ve reproduced some below. It may simply be that Moss was taking on too much at once, such that this lacks the focus of her novellas. Ultimately, I would have been happy to have just the historical story line; the repeat of the surrendering for adoption element isn’t necessary to make any point. (I was relieved, anyway, that Moss didn’t resort to the cheap trick of having the baby turn out to be a character we’ve already been introduced to.) I admire the ambition but feel Moss has yet to return to the sweet spot of her first five novels. Still, I’m a fan for life. (3.5 stars)

Some favourite lines:

“Dance, I thought, is presence, it is movement in the absence of past and future time, and also it is a form of storytelling and although narrative time and dance time are different, have different forms of the present tense, the ideas of pure presence and narrative are not compatible.”

“She wasn’t callous, Maman, it wasn’t that she didn’t care, she just couldn’t stay”

“she knows she’ll never be local anywhere now”

Gunter: “It’s a choice, isn’t it, between belonging and autonomy”

“You’ll belong by caring for people and places. You can’t go home, wanderer. You come from where you were last.”

I really enjoyed this book. Beautifully written and set over two timelines, it follows Edith, first as a teenager in the 60s and then again in the present day. The story is part coming of age and part reflection on the past, with both timelines being equally engrossing and meshing together seamlessly to drive the story forward.

Sarah Moss writes with so much sensitivity and thoughtfulness, building a life and character that you're instantly invested in find out more about

It's an incredibly poignant and emotional book, with themes of belonging, home and identity that feel remarkably relevant in today's world, with so much conflict around the world generating refugees and migration.

Definitely recommended and a great summer read.

I really hope this gets a Booker Prize nomination. It is so beautifully written and I didn’t notice the hours passing as I read it. It is the perfect summer read and Moss is a genius. Her writing style, characterisation, plot and thematic mapping are all wonderful. I think this may be my favourite book of hers yet, particularly due to its explorations of identity, belonging, relationships and maturity. A five star read and one everyone should pick up!

Ripeness by Sarah Moss
⭐⭐⭐ 3.75 stars
Publication date: 22nd May 2025

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

On the brink of adulthood and just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will change all of their lives.
Decades later, happily divorced and newly energized, Edith is living in contentment and comfort in Ireland.

I am a fan of dual, or multiple, timelines. In this novel, I much preferred the past timeline in Italy; it was lyrical, atmospheric and such a heartbreaking coming-of-age that I was always keen to return to it while I was reading.
This being said, Edith’s present timeline had some really interesting moments and I really appreciated the conversation around the “Good Immigrant” narrative. As an immigrant myself who was once told by someone that they had no issues with “people like me” (good grief…), I could absolutely relate to Edith’s discomfort and frustration.
Just like in Summerwater (which I loved), this is a compelling character study and Moss’ writing is stunning, with beautiful descriptions of nature. I really want to dive into this author’s back catalogue and I'll happily read anything else she writes in the future.

I really wanted to love this book a lot more than I did but I think it just wasn't the right time to give it a go. Perhaps I may go back to it at some point but I did have to DNF it at 25%. The themes included in the book had my full attention when I requested it but unfortunately I just could not fully get in to it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this ARC.

I enjoyed Sarah Moss’s best-selling short novel, Ghost Wall, 2018, a chilling story which focused on an iron age enactment weekend, where one character’s obsession with authenticity infects the whole group, and highlights the historical roots of misogyny, domestic abuse and the class system. It’s political but also poetic. As is Ripeness, her ninth novel. It’s also playful and funny. She’s also an academic so expect a story that’s intellectually satisfying and beautifully written as well as pacy.

Ripeness, which I read as a free proof on NetGalley for an unbiased review, is a compelling read. Set in Ireland (where the author now lives), Edith, 73 who has a lover, Gunter and one close friend, Meabh, compares her present day life in rural Ireland, with the summer, before going to Oxford when her family sent her to stay in an Italian villa. Here her older unmarried sister, Lydie, a ballet dancer, is about to give birth. Their mother, Maman, (French, Jewish, English) who had several passports often left her children, and Edith reflects that this history of leaving and displacement meant they never felt they belong anywhere.

It was the people who felt safe who didn’t leave, Maman said. It was the settled, secure ones who ended up on the cattle trucks, the ones who thought it couldn’t happen here, to us. It can always happen here, to you.

Edith has been brought up on her grandparents’ farm and is familiar with animals giving birth; but as an impressionable 18 year old is out of her depth trying to help her sister. Lydie, who resents the pregnancy, is planning to have the baby adopted and doesn’t want to be looked after. Ripeness is a coming of age story, with chapters alternating between the young Edith and her older self. It’s also a state of the nation novel.

The Ukrainians, Edith has observed, have a measure of exemption from the requirement for refugees to express gratitude. They are allowed a certain moodiness. Irish people have an ancestral memory of having to flee or fight the aggressor next door…

For the first time in her life here in Ireland, Edith feels a degree of belonging. She’s happily divorced (after 40 years) and feels a familiarity in the Irish landscape which is:

as fragile and as much menaced as any and all others, but there’s something about the nakedness of limestone, something about the encounter of body and stone, that makes her feel safe.

But when as group of young refugees from an African country are housed locally, she sees the same patterns of discrimination repeating themselves. One friend, Eilidh, says:

I’m sure they’re nice enough lads but lads all the same, watching our girls in their shorts. Coming from Africa, you know yourself the ideas they have about women over there.

Racism, fear of ‘the other’ and small-mindedness can happen anywhere and at any time. Think of Brexit. Think of Trump’s America. It can always happen here, to you. This is a novel that tackles the major issues of our time.

Moss won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize for her novel, Night Waking, 2011 and has been short-listed for many major prizes, but is yet to win one. She deserves to for this novel, and I’d put my money on the Booker or the Women’s Prize.

Just wonderful! So much is in this tender, beautifully crafted book. I have already given copies as presents, I want to share it with everyone!

Ripeness by Sarah Moss tells the story of Edith across two timelines, as a teenager in the 1960s supporting her pregnant sister in Italy and as a divorced woman in present day rural Ireland. Motherhood has long been a dominant theme in Moss’ fiction, whereas migration becomes the main focus here, exploring Edith’s identity as a daughter of Holocaust survivors. After a series of short and brutal novellas in recent years with more direct social commentary, Ripeness is broader and more reflective in tone and seems to represent a new and more ambitious era for Moss’s fiction, perhaps a response to publishing her memoir My Good Bright Wolf last year. Many thanks to Picador for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

Ripeness is a timely book on immigration and identity, national identity and belonging. A very poignant and necessary read in today’s world.

It explores the long lineage of immigration in family histories especially forced immigration where historically people were left with no choice but to flee for their lives. Moss excellently connects the history of Jewish people leaving Europe during WW2 to the immigration we see today as a result from conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and explores what identity means when you have mixed heritage and settle in another country.

The novel flits back and forth between Edith, born to an English father and French-Jewish mother, as an elderly woman in the present day and her sixteen year old self sent to Italy in the sixties to help her sister give birth. I much preferred the sections where Edith was older compared to younger, but I put that down to those passages speaking more to current society. I also don’t usually mind books without speech marks but this one I struggled with and found myself getting confused easily at who was saying what. However, overall, Ripeness is beautifully written and I found it to be, at times, a powerful read.

As always with Sarah Moss, exceptional writing and storytelling. I enjoy a dual narrative and this one worked well for me and the historical one was heartbreaking and evocative. The question of how one can find a sense of belonging in a place that is not your place of birth (which Moss also tackles in Names For The Sea) takes on fresh relevance with reference to contemporary refugees. Parts err towards the didactic, while other sections are incredibly sensitive and nuanced. I enjoyed it very much.

Always love Sarah Moss and this feels a slight move away from her previous books. Still steeped in melancholy and fear of the unknown but the wider settings add colour.