Summerwater

A well written and engaging

St Just Thursday Evening Reading Group 4th August 2022.

Summerwater. Sarah Moss.

All of the reading group loved this book, with hardly any reservations. The writing style was appreciated, and the ‘stream of consciousness’ method was likened to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Another reader thought it was like a book of short stories, several of them about mothers and daughters. “I was wonderfully bemused with the sense of dread the decayed setting and relentless rain evoked and so curious to know which way the stories would go.” Many people noted the clues – the boy’s difficulties with his kayak, and in particular, the little girl’s shoe being found in a puddle. In fact, we thought the narrative was built very cleverly to a climax.

The writing gave a real sense of the place, a dark unfathomable loch, and the constant rain which made even the most upbeat characters feel depressed. All the readers could relate to holidays spent in Scotland when it rained all the time! The story was beautifully observed, someone commented, and very cleverly examined the characters’ thoughts about each other, their feelings, their attitudes to the holiday, and their differences: the bored teenagers irritation with their parents who had brought them to such a dreary holiday park; the little girl analysing her parents’ failings; the struggling young mum; the failing elderly woman; the incomers; and the family who make too much noise partying. There was a suggestion that each family represented certain aspects of society: the bitter elderly man and his rather shadowy wife perhaps indicated the patriarchy; and the noisy cabin being the ‘outsiders’.

One reader found the book hard to get into, and did not like the first chapter; another specifically liked the first chapter and saw it as a story in itself. Someone else felt that the ending was a little rushed, as if the evening had to be wrapped up in a hurry.

Other than the above, there were no adverse criticisms of this book. One commenter noted that Sarah Moss used to live in West Cornwall and would have liked to meet her. Several of us had read other titles by Sarah Moss, and all of us would like to read some more of them. The group met in the library, with great pleasure, for the first time since March 2020.

Thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful novel, written with such a light touch she makes it seem easy. It's about people on holiday in the rain which sounds depressing when in fact it's anything but. Very acutely observed with a gentle, wily humour and somehow also sense of foreboding. Will tragedy strike, and if so, to whom?