Location and isolation are themes of both Sarah Mosses writing to date but rather than a post pandemic Greenland Night Waking is set in the desolate Scottish Island of Colsay. It very well written, sharp sad with a sometimes harsh feminist view of the clash between motherhood and work.
Judging Panel Fiction Uncovered 2011: ‘A must-read for any parent, this novel dramatises a family’s struggle to balance work and relationships in the isolated setting of a Scottish isle. Everyday tensions and an extraordinary event come together to produce a remarkably satisfying story.’
'Humorous, sad and clever... A passionately written meditation on motherhood' Sunday Times
Anna Bennett hasn't slept in months. She also has an insomniac toddler, a precocious, death-obsessed seven-year-old, and a frequently-absent ecologist husband who has brought them all to a desolate island in the Hebrides so he can count the puffins.
When her son finds a baby's skeleton buried in the garden, Anna must confront the island's troubled past, while finding a way to live with the complex demands of motherhood. Night Waking is a deeply moving and blackly funny tale from one of the great feminist observers of modern family life.
'Sarah Moss writes the kind of books that are difficult to put down' Louise Welch, Financial Times
'Moss writes marvellously (and often hilariously)' The Times
Sarah Moss was educated at Oxford University and is a senior Lecturer in Literature and Place at the Cornwall Campus of Exeter University. She spent 2009-10 as a visiting lecturer at the University of Reykavik. She co-edits, with Nicola Humble, the Food series at Manchester University Press. Night Waking is her second novel.
