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 re-enact 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 artefacts, 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.
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[HEY BRING HER out]***
(Granta Books, 20 September 2018, 152 pages, hardback, bought from @AmazonUK)
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This is my first time reading the author. I really enjoyed Ghost Wall. The book has a dark tone that runs all the way through it. Silvie's father appears to be a kind, decent man if a little obsessed with early man and local history. However, there are hints that he is a brute, violent and abusive towards his daughter, who is afraid of him and acts like a frightened rabbit around him. He is domineering and overwhelming. As the trip trundles along Silvie's father becomes increasingly unhinged. The horrific ending really threw me for a loop. Did Silvie's father simply want to re-enact a historical event and things got out of hand? Or were his actions intentional to punish his daughter in some way, perhaps because she was gay?