Sarah Moss has a sharp ear for the vibrancy of ordinary life amidst its disappointments. This, her seventh novel, is a quiet story of holidaymakers hemmed in by the rain and the relative remoteness of their wooden cabins, strung out along the banks of a Scottish loch.

Summerwater
SARAH MOSS
(PICADOR, 208 PP, £14.99)
Tablet bookshop price £13.49 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Sarah Moss has a sharp ear for the vibrancy of ordinary life amidst its disappointments. This, her seventh novel, is a quiet story of holidaymakers hemmed in by the rain and the relative remoteness of their wooden cabins, strung out along the banks of a Scottish loch. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is not an exciting premise, but the point of Sarah Moss’ writing, enlivened by precise and gently witty details, is how marvellously she takes you inside the head of her narrators.

Each chapter in Summerwater is told from a different person’s ­perspective. Gradually, we see the ­interconnectedness of this temporary community of reluctant neighbours, whose instincts lead them to observe and make ­tentative contact with each other, though “that’s not what we’re here for”.

Justine is up by the loch with her young children and her husband, Steve. As she lies in bed, through the thin partition comes the sound of Steve’s “aggressive peeing”: he “could perfectly well just bloody sit down but won’t because in his head the masculinity police are watching”. But she doesn’t mind. What Justine loves is running in the early morning, up into the hills, “breathing … damp and oak and pine and her feet finding their way, rain and sweat in her eyes”.

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