Ripeness - by Sarah Moss

Book Synopsis

A story of sisterhood, forbidden desire, lost connection, and what it means to find a home among strangers.

Edith, just out of school, has been sent from her quiet English life to rural Italy. It is the 1960s, and her mother has issued strict instructions: tend to her ballerina sister, Lydia, in the final weeks of her scandalous pregnancy; help at the birth; make a phone call that will summon the nuns who will spirit the child away to a new home.

Decades later, happily divorced, recently moved, and full of new energy, Edith has fashioned a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. Then her best friend, Méabh, receives a shocking phone call from an American man. He claims to be a brother she never knew existed: a child her mother gave up and never spoke of again. As Edith helps her friend reckon with this new idea of connection and how it might change her life, her thoughts turn back to Lydia and the fractured history of her own family. What did they give up when they sent the baby away? What kind of family has he been given? What kind of life? And how was hers changed by his arrival and departure?

In Ripeness, Sarah Moss has again tapped into the questions that haunt us individually and as communities. This extraordinary novel explores familial love and the bonds we forge across time, migration and new beginnings, and what it means to find somewhere to belong.

Review Quotes

"Arresting . . . Swirling with interesting thoughts . . . [An] affirmation of life."
--Marion Winik, The Minnesota Star Tribune

"Sublime . . . Glorious."
--Olivia Marks, British Vogue

"A powerful and beautifully written story of family, friendship and identity."
--Arin Keeble, The Guardian

"Moss is a master of the ticking clock. Her novels thrum with tension . . . As the climax rushes towards us, [she] makes every moment count."
--Laura Hackett, The Times (London)

"Luminous . . . Moss spins a sense of belonging in the flux of history into a rich and complex matter."
--Thomas McMullan, Financial Times

"One of those writers so in command of her characters and her pacing that it's difficult to pinpoint her genius . . . Brilliant."
--Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub

"Captivating . . . Beguiling."
--Michael Cronin, The Irish Times

"'Evocative . . . Immensely moving . . . This novel lingers so strongly in the mind."
--Harper's Bazaar (London)

"I devoured Ripeness . . . What a delicious novel."
--Zoe Guttenplan, Literary Review

"Layered and poignant . . . Moss's characters are delightfully complex, giving shape to the narrative's meditation on belonging."
--Publishers Weekly

"[A] beautifully crafted novel . . . Above all, it's a meditation on belonging . . . Thoroughly absorbing and moving."
--Stephanie Cross, The Daily Mail

"An expansive, expressive tale of family, history, and ballet, this is illuminated by pin-sharp imagery and rueful self-awareness."
--The Mail on Sunday

"Moss directs her keen and graceful sensibility toward modern-day Ireland and 1960s Italy with equal aplomb."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Moss is a prolific and vital novelist . . . [Ripeness] is a tender book that explores issues such as identity, belonging and consent, themes that fit into Moss's wider oeuvre . . . An important and convincing book."
--Susie Mesure, The Spectator

"An insightful examination of family ties and belonging."
--The Economist (London)

"Much of the pleasure in Ripeness is of being in the presence of a fluid intelligence."
--John Self, The Critic

"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, author of Birnam Wood

"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 The Paris Express

"This book felt to me like I was reading the achievement of a lifetime, from one of the best writers alive. Moving, unexpected, masterful, Ripeness is a story of stories, of belonging, of exits and entrances and everything in between. A beautiful, powerful read that echoed for me long after."
--Jessie Burton, author of The House of Fortune

About the Author

Sarah Moss is the author of the novels The Fell, Summerwater, and Ghost Wall, and the memoir My Good Bright Wolf. These and her other books have been listed among the best of the year in The Guardian, The Times (London), Elle, and the Financial Times and selected for The New York Times Book Review's Editors' Choice. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she was educated at the University of Oxford and now teaches at University College Dublin.