The Fell

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What to expect

Acclaimed author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss is back with a sharply observed and darkly funny novel for our times.

'A tense page turner . . . I gulped The Fell down in one sitting' - Emma Donoghue
'Gripping, thoughtful and revelatory' – Paula Hawkins
'This slim, intense masterpiece is one of my best books of the year' - Rachel Joyce
'Her work is as close to perfect as a novelist’s can be' The Times

At dusk on a November evening in 2020 a woman slips out of her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine period, but she just can’t take it any more – the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know.

But Kate’s neighbour Alice sees her leaving and Matt, Kate’s son, soon realizes she’s missing. And Kate, who planned only a quick solitary walk – a breath of open air – falls and badly injures herself. What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation . . .

Unbearably suspenseful, witty and wise, The Fell asks probing questions about the place the world has become since March 2020, and the place it was before. This novel is a story about compassion and kindness and what we must do to survive, and it will move you to tears.

The Times audiobook of the week.

‘One of our very best contemporary novelists’ – Independent

Critics Review

A slim, tense page turner that captures the weird melancholia of locked-down life but also the precious warmth of human connection. I gulped The Fell down in one sitting
Emma Donoghue
Carefully, affectingly and with emotional veracity, Moss opens out Alice’s secrets along with everyone else’s: the mortal fears, the losses, the mistakes. Moss writes so compassionately about human frailty while her own work is as close to perfect as a novelist’s can be
The Times
With The Fell, Sarah Moss seems to have achieved the impossible: she has written a gripping, thoughtful and revelatory book about lockdown
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
A funny, savage novel
Guardian
Absorbing . . . ingeniously done . . there's an intoxicating flow to much of the writing . . . a humane, thoughtful reflection on the lockdown experience
Scotsman
The Fell reflects the lives we have been living for the last 18 months in a way no other writer has dared to do. There is wit, there is compassion, there is a tension that builds like a pressure cooker. This slim, intense masterpiece is one of my best books of the year
Rachel Joyce
A one-sitting read that's both thriller and stream of consciousness meditation on how Covid has changed our world . . . ambitious and immersive
Red
Moss is strong on pastoral lyricism, and her characteristic humour is as piercing here as in her previous novels . . . The Fell eloquently explores many of the big issues we have been facing since March 2020
The Times
A masterfully tense, deeply empathetic novel about lives stilled and re-examined, and the uncertainty and danger of the world that surrounds them. I was completely riveted by the central questions of its narrative, and by its tender, insightful exploration of the times we are living through
Megan Hunter, author of The End We Start From
Again and again, and always with steely precision, Moss has mined both the circumstances and the consequences of isolation . . . one of the very best British novelists writing today about contemporary life - if anyone can justify writing a pandemic novel, she's the woman for the job
Daily Telegraph
She conjures the fretful confinement of the pandemic with colossal skill . . . deft and evocative . . . the operation to rescue Kate is nail-biting. There are also scenes of unbearable poignancy . . . shrewd and moving
i
The pandemic is spawning some fine writing, and this helter-skelter novel by Moss is one of the best yet. The book captures both the paranoia of the times and the kindness of strangers
Mail on Sunday
The novel's chief achievement is the way it calcifies a specific moment in recent history . . . Moss perfectly simulates the stifling psychological confinement and ennui of locked-down life . . . Moss writes evocatively of the stark beauty of the countryside . . . a neat, atmospheric novel
Literary Review
[The Fell] leaves the reader on tenterhooks as the story builds to its conclusion. Moss perfectly captures Kate and Alice’s self-isolation-induced claustrophobia . . . Some readers might not want to immerse themselves in the cabin fever of early lockdown so soon after living through it, but Moss makes a strong case for social connection being as important as our physical health for survival
Daily Mirror
Moss steps into other people’s shoes with impressive ease. Her prose is clear, low-key and compelling, its power incremental . . . The Fell is about the hazards that lurk at the edges of life. Feelingly, but without sentimentality, Moss explores what happens when you find yourself teetering on the precipice
Herald
The Fell is very much a novel of our time . . . it takes note of the moment, and captures what seemed unimaginable even a year before it was set. But it also offers hope . . . there may be a time when what is described here is, indeed, in the past, and a novel like The Fell will help us to remember
Church Times
It seems ever more important that fiction acknowledge the truths the pandemic has revealed to us: how connected we all are, and how much we fear one another
Guardian
Moss is brilliant at creating a feeling of mounting peril . . . Her humour is so black it's treacly She's also one of our best writers on the natural world . . . [The Fell] confirms that Sarah Moss is a writer of remarkable power, control and deftness. She's funny, observant and very much of the moment
Oldie

User Reviews

Book 5.0
Narration 5.0
5.0
5.0
This was a tense and gripping listen. It vividly brought back the strangeness of the Covid lockdowns, and the intense psychological states created by attempting to live by the rules (so ironic now in the light of Partygate etc.). The characters and relationships are skilfully and sensitively drawn, and you feel the experience of the dark, rain-soaked landscape. The narration is urgent and engaging, conveying the tensions in the text. Excellent.
HelenHackett 16/07/2023

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