Name: Esme's review of Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Item: Ghost Wall
Rating: 5
Author: Esme

Sarah Moss

It is high summer in rural Northumberland. Seventeen-year-old Silvie and her parents have joined an encampment run by an archaeology professor with an interest in the region's dark history of ritual sacrifice. As Silvie finds a glimpse of new freedoms with the professor's students, her relationship with her overbearing father begins to deteriorate, until the haunting rites of the past begin to bleed into the present.

Ghost Wall

Esme

A masterclass in the art of the short, unnerving novel; a story of forbidden borders, haunted landscapes and bodies in danger. Teenage Silvie and her parents are living in a hut in Northumberland as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is a difficult man, obsessed with imagining and enacting the harshness of Iron Age life. Haunting Silvie's narrative is the story of a bog girl, a young woman sacrificed by those closest to her, and the landscape both keeps and reveals the secrets of past violence and ritual as the summer builds to its harrowing climax.

I thought this was fine. A little gay. Mostly sad because I know how the cycle of excuses can impact someone when they’re being treated poorly. 

The picture of guilt within abuse victims in this is sooo well written, and the lines between fiction and reality for the people in that camp being more and more blurred as the story went on sent shivers down my spine, and i spent the last minutes of this in disbelief

Stas

i hate it i hate it i hate it

JAIL

could've been longer

The picture of guilt within abuse victims in this is sooo well written, and the lines between fiction and reality for the people in that camp being more and more blurred as the story went on sent shivers down my spine, and i spent the last minutes of this in disbelief

Molly M

i think maybe this book was good but it was so dismal and unpleasant and not what i was in the mood for

A taut, gripping tale of a young woman and an Iron Age reenactment trip that unearths frightening behavior The light blinds you; there’s a lot you miss by gathering at the fireside. In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age. For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit. The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind. The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice? A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors.

A Novel

Lindy

A fairly subtly written story about the powers of imagined pasts.

I want to set this next to Cortázar's "La noche boca arriba" and write an essay about it.

I'm actually speechless. I loved, loved, loved this book, and the ending kind of got me in the end because it broke the cycle. This book really portrayed the quote, "Often father and daughter look down on mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate.” 

Please, please, please read this. So well done.

(Bre)anne✨

TW to be added later

I'm actually speechless. I loved, loved, loved this book, and the ending kind of got me in the end because it broke the cycle. This book really portrayed the quote, "Often father and daughter look down on mother together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate.” 

Please, please, please read this. So well done.

Charlotte Dann

Still struggling to figure out how I feel about this book. It felt quite dark and scary at some points (the kind of book that can't get away without being burbled 'harrowing'), but also calm and sobering. Talked a bit about it in my monthly wrap-up video.

Em💫

Amy Thibodeau

'I have never read a novel this slender that holds inside it quite so much. Wild, calm, dark yet hopeful... This book ratcheted the breath out of me so skilfully that as soon as I'd finished, the only thing I wanted was to read it again' Jessie Burton It is high summer in rural Northumberland. Seventeen-year-old Silvie and her parents have joined an encampment run by an archaeology professor with an interest in the region's dark history of ritual sacrifice. As Silvie finds a glimpse of new freedoms with the professor's students, her relationship with her overbearing father begins to deteriorate, until the haunting rites of the past begin to bleed into the present.

Janice Hopper

There's a lot going on in this little book.

There's various kinds of abuse; a bit of feminism; creepy ancient rites that still have a hold on modern imaginations; reenactment of life in the Iron Age.

There's slowly-building tension and dread. It's not horror, but an academic exercise slowly starts to become horrible.

It's good. 

I listened to it in one day while I was knitting.

Caterina P.

** spoiler alert **
           General Thoughts: 
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was definitely worth the read. I found it emotionally haunting and truly felt Sylvie’s humiliation and fear at the end. Sarah Moss’s writing style, or perhaps the formatting of the novella, really rubbed me the wrong way. I felt as though it took me much longer to get through the novel because the blocky chunks of text made it seem so much longer and drawn out, but perhaps that was the point. Perhaps it was supposed to be clunky and awkward where everything was running together - because that’s what was happening to Sylvie. Perhaps it was supposed to be difficult? Who truly knows? 

My favorite parts were where Sarah Moss’s writing style took a dark turn in the most mundane moments. For example, my absolute favorite part of the book was when the textile lecturer came to the encampment to teach the students about basket weaving and she waxed and waned about if we were the ghosts, or if the deceased were and how essentially by doing the task they were one and the same: 

“I shivered. Of course, that was the whole point of the re-enactment, that we ourselves became the ghosts, learning to walk the land as they walked it two thousand years ago, to tend our fire as they tended theirs and hope that some of their thoughts, their way of understanding the world, would follow the dance of muscle and bone. To do it properly, I thought, we would almost have to absent ourselves from ourselves, leaving our actions, our re-enactions, to those no longer there. Who are the ghosts again, us or our dead? Maybe they imagined us first, maybe we were conjured out of the deep past by other minds.” 

I found this excerpt eerie and beautiful, and to be honest a bit Romantic with the capital “R.” These slips into darkness and exploration of these sorts of thoughts really pushed me to finish Ghost Wall. I would recommend Ghost Wall to anyone who likes slow burn, character-driven books. Ghost Wall is chilling and Sylvie’s development and narration draws you in as she attempts to figure out her place in the world. 

Extensive Thoughts - Caution, Spoilers Ahead:
It’s been a while since I’ve truly, viscerally hated a character as much as I’ve despised Sylvie’s dad - Bill. A dissatisfied and disillusioned, abusive bus driver who isolates his family and is obsessed with the Iron Age. This obsession leads to his family's forced participation in a summer-long reenactment experience of living in the Iron Age with a small group of grad students from a university. 

Sylvie, Bill’s daughter, is the heart of the story. Through her eyes, we witness Bill’s violence and appropriation of history in order to control those around him (mainly his family) and support his irrational claims. Young Sylvie is caught in his web, she grew up in a turbulent, violent, and isolating environment where it seemed outrageous for her to have any thoughts or aspirations of her own. This is greatly reflected in her mother Allison.

Like Sylvie, I have no idea how her mother Allison ever fell in love with or even considered marrying Bill. Allison is essentially Bill’s slave. She does what he asks with no questions, knowing it will result in violence if she voices any concern. Although Allison is in an extremely bad situation I don’t believe she is without blame for her daughter's terrible upbringing and abuse. Allison is depicted as spineless and subservient. The only way she attempts to protect her daughter is pathetic goading to not displease her father, with the grim reminder that it will only result in a beating. I suppose I have no remorse for thinking so poorly of Allison when she is pitted against the likes of Sylvie and Molly. 

Molly, the savior and rational hero of the story bring the feminist ideology to Sylvie’s already present thoughts. As Sylvie struggles with her situation and begins to guardedly confide in Molly, we see the workings of Sylvie knowing something is not right here, and certainly not right with her family. Sylvie’s development in the book was one of the most interesting parts for me. Her thoughts seemed to evolve as the novella went on - for example going from just getting away from her father to wanting to go all the way to Berlin towards the end. 

I truly enjoyed Molly acting rationally and doing, what I think, any normal person would do in her situation. Sneaking out for crisps and ice cream when scavenging and voicing concern when things at the camp seemed unfair. Molly from the beginning is painted like an irresponsible student who really isn’t there to get anything out of the trip, but as the story progresses it becomes very clear that Molly does care and is passionate about something but is not thrilled with how the men are treating the camp. 

Through Molly and Sylvie’s eyes, it becomes clear that this is Bill’s playground, a place for violence, fighting, and domineering. Something that at first, the Professor objected but soon fell into the routine of living in a violent, sexist, and mythical world. Molly is singlehandedly responsible for Sylvie realizing there are more options in life and that women are not in fact restricted by male wants and needs. Molly not just saves Sylvie in the bog that night but saves her indefinitely by slowly giving her the knowledge she needs to move forwards. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I think it’s definitely worth the read. Ghost wall is emotionally haunting and eerie. I found Sylvie’s yearning for murder and thinking about that space between life and death truly chilling in a Gothic way that I haven’t experienced in a long while. The ending was so humiliating, I could feel her own fear and humiliation radiate through my entire body - then as she becomes more stoic, I could feel myself being put back together. Honestly, the whole read is worth the last 20 pages.

Jeff Brown 

This wasn’t the family “Vacation” to WallyWorld.

I ..... well, I misread the description. I thought this was about a girl caught in long-term ancient cult that followed Iron Age Briton philosophies as a way of life. The girl met some other children who had seen the outside world and the story was about her battle to break free from the cult ..... um, no.

It is about a man who thinks his family vacation is to live as Britons lived centuries ago. He’s an abusive man, but the girl seems to love the daytime, foraging for food with the other kids. But fears when Dad comes home at night — a frequent fear, I’m afraid.

Twisted, sweet, frightening, comforting, horrid. 

I hate the way it was written. Listen to it as an audiobook. It makes it easier not to drift off in the page-long paragraphs with multiple conversations without quotes. Audiobook should solve that flaw.

A trusted reviewer I follow said that it trailed off at the end. I thought it suddenly built up to the end. Not highly recommended, but on a road trip, probably an interesting listen.

Imie Kent-Muller

(3.5 stars) 
Thank you Granta Books for sending got me a copy. Ghost wall is one of those atmospheric books that leave you tasting the setting and feeling it on your skin. Moss has a gorgeous way of describing that leaves nothing to question. If you’re looking for a new atmospheric read full of character development then look no further.

Ghost Wall tells the story of Silvie and her parents joining an archaeology site in Northern Britain for two weeks in the summer which is all about living as if they are ancient Britons. Silvie never knew her life could be something more until she joins the students on this site. She sees a future that is possible away from her overbearing father who is a man dissatisfied with his life as a bus driver and wishes to revert back to the Iron Age. But what happens when these two lives clash? What happens when ancient rituals of sacrifice are brought to the minds of this group of people? This is a dark compelling story about seeing how far we’ve come (or not) since prehistoric times. 

This book is not an easy read, it deals with brutal themes of abuse and the barbaric nature of the past, but Moss has a gorgeous affinity to the landscape she describes which brings beauty to her writing. I am never a fan of no speech marks in texts, but once I got past this I enjoyed the writing. As someone who studied the ancient world and its effect on modern society, anything that delves into this topic always fascinates me and Ghost Wall is no exception. 

Full of brutality and beauty, Ghost Wall is the perfect short atmospheric read that you will eat up. Full of character studies and an analytical look at the past, Moss has created a story set in Northern Britain that will chill you to the bone.

Cerys

*2.5. I thought this novella was going to be a smash hit for me, however, I was sorely disappointed. I personally believe that synopsis of this novella completely misleads those who wish to read the book. This could mean that due to me reading this because I enjoyed the blurb, I could not fully enjoy the story that I believed I was misled to read.

Moray Lyle McIntosh

Ghost Wall
This upcoming novella from Sarah Moss is a powerful little thing. Moss is always at her best when describing the complexities of family relationships; the tensions and strains as well as the vital support that our loved ones can provide. Playing on the themes of conflicting priorities and power that were central to Bodies of Light and Night Waking Ghost Walk takes these to a new level with the violent relationship between narrator Silvie and her father.
Sylvie, her abusive father Bill and browbeaten mother are taking part in an “experiential archaeology” experiment, living as ancient Britons in the rugged countryside of Northumberland with a small group of university students and their professor. It’s a study in contrasts the ancient and the modern, the class-based clashes of sensibility and experience between Sylvie’s solidly working-class family and the middle-class academics. Sylvie’s father, a disillusioned (and delusional) bus-driver obsesses over the way pre-Roman people “really” lived, demanding total commitment to authenticity while the university folk are only semi-invested and well aware of the flaws of the experiment; they live in tents, wear modern clothing, shop at Spar.
Moss tackles some heavy themes that highlight the complexity of the relationships and the characters. Bill’s rigid insistence that his family live “authentically”, food, clothes and shelter, reflects an unpleasant nationalism. His knowledge of history is wilfully selective, bolstering his ignorance instead of correcting it. His obsession with an imaginary golden-age of pre-Roman Britain is used to justify pernicious racism and faulty reasoning also visible in his violent misogyny.
The roles and mentalities of Sylvie and her mother are nuanced and sympathetic, capturing all of the hurt, blame, fear and (often aborted) rebellion present in abusive relationships. Sylvie’s defense of both parents when they are criticised by outsiders is an involuntary reaction that she questions but is unable to resist. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the affect that the family dynamic has on other members of the group. It is increasingly clear that the control Bill exercises over his wife and daughter is unhealthy and violent but beyond sidelong looks Molly is the only outsider to address it and challenge it. As the group becomes increasingly invested in the ancient ritual of the “Ghost Wall” a disturbing herd mentality emerges and the passive acceptance of Bill’s actions takes a sinister and violent shift that highlights the paralysing nature of abuse and how it can be possible for outsiders not just to turn a blind eye to but to be drawn into it.
As ever Moss’s writing is exception. She has a gift for first-person narrative and using internal dialogue to interrogate how the mind works on the external world (and vice versa). The build-up of tension as clashing ideals and personalities create an increasingly toxic atmosphere is palpable and only heightened by the surface calm and the isolation of the characters from real life.
The contrast between the ancient and the modern is diminished not just by the setting of the “experiential archaeology” practised by the characters (I’m with sceptical student Molly, the concept is largely a nonsense) but in the eerily, disturbingly unchanged way that humans can act and react to fear and violence and the capacity for ritual and patterns of behaviour to reify power structures and relationships, reinforcing the powerful and enervating the victims.

After the growing tension of the earlier chapters the conclusion does seem to be a little hurried and a little more juxtaposition between Sylvie and the Bog Girl throughout the story would have helped it feel a little more balanced and consistent. Nevertheless Sarah Moss has provided yet another gripping, sophisticated story of human relationships with her usual masterful command of drama and humour.

Olivera Mitić

This made me feel really uncomfortable but in a bad kinda way.

Jade Flynn

My fifth read from the Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist and sadly my least favourite. It's partially my fault for listening to the serious hype around Moss for ages but this was just okay. Nothing special - I thought it dragged a bit in the middle and it wasn't harrowing or unsettling at all.

Kira

dark, chilling, unexpected and gripping. a quick read, not necessarily an easy one. the book discusses  domestic violence eloquently and poignantly. not something i would normally pick up, but i am very glad i did. 

Laura

It would be impossible to talk about Ghost Wall without first mentioning Brexit. Despite the book taking place in the 1990s, this is a Brexit novel. More specifically, it’s a novel condemning Brexit which is unsurprising since I have not read any pro-Brexit books nor have I heard of them. But, despite being a stupid American, I have been invested in Brexit since the day it was announced. I followed both pro- and anti- Brexit news media and marked the date of the referendum on my calendar just so I could follow it live. I had no dog in the Brexit fight and didn’t really care how it would turn out, because it wouldn’t affect me anyway. Besides, I figured Britain would stay and the status quo would remain unchanged. When the voice of Britons across the world was heard and they chose to leave, I was pleasantly surprised. I’m one of those people who believes the world could use a good shake-up every so often, and I liked that it was the will of the people doing that shake-up instead of politicians, especially since if Brexit remained solely in Parliament Britain would still be part of the EU. It’s the American in me, the part of me deeply attracted to the idea of revolution. I am far from an idealist- in fact I actively dislike idealists- but I can’t help but view revolutions of all kinds with the hope deeply ingrained in all Americans whether they want to admit it or not. But I am aware others do not view Brexit as a revolution. In fact, they view it as a reactionary move against the progressiveness of the EU and its free immigration policy, forgetting that revolutions do not always come from the left. But to view Brexit solely as a xenophobic move is simply ignorant. There’s so much more depth to the issue than pro- and anti- immigration. Let’s talk about the money Britain pumped into the EU only to never get it back, the forcing of unpopular laws and needless regulations onto Britain, or the disaster of the Euro. Immigration is only a small part of a bigger argument.

Ghost Wall is one of those novels that narrow Brexit down to one issue and attempt to heavy-handedly argue that one issue. I strongly disliked the one-sided characters and the lack of nuance in their personalities. Like Silvie’s father, a xenophobic, racist, sexist, ignorant working class man who beats his wife and daughter. Moss’ portrayal of Silvie’s father reminds me of the widespread condemnation by wealthy liberals of poor, rust- and coal-belt working class whites after the election of Trump, ignoring the fact that those people live in some of the poorest areas of the country and have no-one left to pin their hopes on. Many voted for Obama only to have been betrayed by him, but Trump seems to hear them. All they want is for someone to hear them. I have a deep sympathy for the unheard and the working class; perhaps if I lived one hundred years ago I would have been a communist instead of the center-rightist I am now. I am aware these are unpopular and even controversial opinions, but I’ve formed them out of a need to hear and understand people condemned today by the very people who once claimed to be their champions. Silvie’s father deserved more analysis and depth to his character, because in him especially it is obvious that a sheltered Oxbridge woman who doesn’t even attempt to understand how people who aren’t part of her ilk think. 

I was a bit confused by his condemnation of Catholicism. Doesn’t Britain have a strong tradition of Catholic conservatives who view Catholicism as the only pure form of Christianity and all the other denominations are just corrupt versions of Catholicism? Or has that changed with the influx of Poles, who are predominantly Catholic? And if he’s so in love with the Iron Age, why doesn’t he just condemn Christianity in general in favor of the traditional British religion? 

I also found fault with the severe gender gap. In this novel, women are consistently portrayed as the intelligent and enlightened ones who know that the modern day is better and who must band together under the tyranny of man. As someone who never felt female solidatiary, and in fact just the opposite, I wonder if Moss has any understanding of how female relationships work beyond her feminist theory books. But of course, that just might be me being tired of close female relationships in novels. 

The book did cause me to think critically about xenophobia, and the left’s inconsistent condemnation of it. Why does everyone condemn what they perceive to be xenophobia in European countries, but then celebrate it in the case of Zimbabwe and South Africa- who kicked white farmers off the land they rightfully own- and ignore it in places like Japan. There’s also musings about who the British people are and how all nations are built off immigration. But if all nations are built off immigration, and there has never been a people who remained where they were, untouched and uncontacted, for all of eternity then what about uncontacted tribes in the Amazon or off the coast of India? Why are non white cultures held on such a higher pedestal than white cultures? Why do some people reject the idea of white cultures existing in the first place and then embrace the idea of non white cultures? Rome conquered Britain, isn’t that colonialism, which we should condemn, or should we embrace it because it brought new people to Britain? It is also worth noting that the people the Romans brought to Britain were definitely slaves and probably didn’t want to be there. If given the choice, they would have most likely gone back to their home lands because the familiar is always better than the unknown. At one point, it’s brought up that Silvie’s name, Sulevia, is actually a Roman name and not a British one. Silvie herself brings up the fact that it is a Roman corruption of a British name. So shouldn’t we feel sad about the lost British language and culture, which was lost because of Roman colonization? Why must we respect the rights of some people to remain closed off from the world but not others? If all countries benefit from immigration, when can we talk about Sweden’s rising rape rate or the effects of colonialism on North Africa? Why can some people have pride in their countries and being who they are but others cannot? These are thoughts that make my head hurt and make me somewhat happy to live in America, where at least I know this country is built off immigration and I don’t have to give myself a headache unpacking all this. Unless of course someone wants to bring up Native American tribes and then I have to think about why we should embrace Latin American immigration when we also have condemn white immigration because of the bad things that happened to the Indians. Look, I’m in favor of immigration and think that multiculturalism is in general an asset but I also like for people to remain consistent with what they believe. 

In conclusion, I found Ghost Wall to be not very good. It has very little depth or intrigue to it, and the writing is nice but the characters are awful. While reading, I thought of The Book of Essie, and my awful feelings towards that novel as a condemnation towards a group of people the author herself didn’t fully understand. Ghost Wall is essentially the British version of this. It’s a flimsy condemnation of issues and people that the author doesn’t even attempt to understand herself, but why should she? They hold wrong opinions and she holds the right ones.

Gary Homewood

Teenage daughter and family camping as experiential archeology, re-enacting iron age life in the bog lands of Northumberland with a group of students. History, landscape and effectively sinister.

Esme &
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

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