Ripeness by Sarah Moss – a beautifully written novel of place and identity
Sarah Moss's post-Brexit novels, Ghost Wall, Summerwater and The Fell, have dealt centrally with the anxieties and hostilities of the white working and middle classes in contemporary Britain. This trio of short, vivid works has also quietly established Moss as a revered chronicler of the political present. Though Ripeness bears many of the hallmarks of her recent fiction – evocative descriptions of the natural world abound, no speech marks used, chapter titles plucked suggestively out of the narrative – it also departs from it. It is longer, slower, European in setting, and its political critiques are ultimately muted.
Ripeness is structured in alternating narrative strands, both following an English woman called Edith: one as a septuagenarian living comfortably in the west of Ireland in the post-pandemic present, and another as a bookish, Oxford-bound 17-year-old travelling to Italy in the late 60s. These strands are initially connected by stories of babies given up. In the present, Edith's best friend Méabh is contacted by an unknown older brother who was adopted and raised in America and now wants to 'see where he comes from'. In the historical strand, Edith is travelling to help her older sister, a professional ballerina, pregnant with a child she will almost immediately relinquish. Together, a textured and affecting story about place and identity emerges.
Early on we learn that Edith has four passports – English, Irish, French and Israeli – and that her French-Jewish mother was granted refuge in England in 1941 while her grandparents and aunt were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Edith's 'Maman', an artist and 'iconoclast' to her friends in rural Derbyshire, advised her to always 'leave before you're certain, because if you wait until you know, there are boots coming up the stairs and blood on the walls'. While her mother's migration was driven by genocide and trauma, and her grandparents before had fled Ukraine for France, she and her sister were able to travel freely around Europe, and the young Edith's only real concern was that 'the rising hemlines of the mid-60s had not reached the thigh of Italy'. But in the novel's present, military aggression is again forcing migration. Edith reflects on the cyclical nature of conflict, noting that the 'great grandparents of the people now fleeing Russian invasion and taking refuge here in the west of Ireland were the aggressors from whom her great-grandparents fled Ukraine'.
A central tension is established when Edith discovers that while Méabh is sympathetic to their village's Ukrainian refugees, she is actively protesting at the use of a local hotel as emergency housing for African refugees. Edith is sickened and wonders briefly if she can remain friends with 'someone who thinks the problem is refugees'. Quickly she decides she can, though Méabh's position continues to trouble her. She supports her plans to meet her brother, but stews over her own belief that 'national identity isn't genetic, that blood doesn't give you rights of ownership', that 'Méabh's brother can't just come here and call it home, say he belongs, when nothing the Ukrainians do will ever entitle them to say such things, when the lads at the hotel aren't even allowed the air they breathe'. These convictions are not unconsidered, and Edith gives much thought to various claims to and erasures of identity – including the Jewishness of her unknown nephew, adopted by nuns, and her Maman's traumatic experiences of loss and migration. Yet, despite her personal connection to histories of genocide and displacement, her dismay at Méabh's position fades.
Edith's convictions about 'blood and soil' logic are betrayed by her lack of reproach to Méabh, and the novel's shifts in narrative perspective allow us to view her critically. The chapters depicting the present are narrated in the third person, while those depicting Edith's trip to Italy are in the first person. While the latter invite us to see the world through her eyes, the former allow some detachment between Edith and the reader and emphasise her privilege, biases and uncertainties. Edith is also increasingly reflexive and self-deprecating, eventually describing herself as having 'remained more of narrator than a participant'.
This evocative distinction between storytelling and action aligns with the novel's dual narrative, which both connects us to and distances us from this compelling and at times frustrating character. However, because of her increasing self-deprecation and reflection, and at least partial awareness of her mistakes, Edith is ultimately presented as sympathetic. Her flaws are human and relatable and by its conclusion, the gap that has opened between the novel's politics and its protagonist's views has shrunk. Just as Edith's dismay at Méabh's comments fades, the anger of Ripeness wanes too. But while its critiques of contemporary attitudes towards migration, and failures in historical thinking, and the ways some refugees are accepted while others are not, do lose some force, it remains a powerful and beautifully written story of family, friendship and identity.
Ripeness by Sarah Moss is published by Picador (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
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