Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing date January 19, 2019
British Literature
Description
A taut, gripping tale of a young woman and an Iron Age reenactment trip that unearths frightening behavior
Ghost Wall takes place in the moody Northumberland countryside and follows 17 year old Silvie who, along with her mother and her abusive father, finds herself joining a professor and three of his students on an archaeological experiment to live how people lived in Iron Age Britain.
Her father is mentally and physically abusive, and is obsessed with the brutality of the Iron Age. He thinks of that period history as a period before immigration – when everything was only British – despite the fact that the country was divided into various pre-Roman clans and cultures during this time, so ‘the good old days’ of Britain without immigration is a place that simply never existed at all. Naturally, he doesn’t quite see it this way.
He’s particularly fascinated by the idea of human sacrifice, something he’s taught Silvie about, and Silvie herself finds herself relating more and more to these ‘bog girls’ who were sacrificed by the people who were supposed to love them. There’s a heartbreaking moment in which Silvie justifies her father’s love for her through these sacrifices, because people only sacrifice, and therefore hurt, the things that they love.
My View
Ghost Wall is my first experience reading author Sarah Moss and certainly not the last. The first few pages began a bit slow, describing Northumberland, Britain, where a professor and his three students, Molly, Pete and Dan set up an academic research study camp on the Iron Age. Near the students camping ground, a family on a two week vacation join in. The father, a brutal man, his wife, a woman long ago given into her husbands moods and Silvie seventeen year old overshadowed by her father.
The author's narration is thight, every character is developed in depth, a real pleasure to read and become entwined within the tale.
It was hard to put the book down to the very end...and what an end...
A must read, you will not be disappointed.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Thank you to NetGalley
My View
Ghost Wall is my first experience reading author Sarah Moss and certainly not the last. The first few pages began a bit slow, describing Northumberland, Britain, where a professor and his three students, Molly, Pete and Dan set up an academic research study camp on the Iron Age. Near the students camping ground, a family on a two week vacation join in. The father, a brutal man, his wife, a woman long ago given into her husbands moods and Silvie seventeen year old overshadowed by her father.
The author's narration is thight, every character is developed in depth, a real pleasure to read and become entwined within the tale.
It was hard to put the book down to the very end...and what an end...
A must read, you will not be disappointed.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Thank you to NetGalley
