![]() He scoffs at their waterproof tents, their inability to skin animals, and bears a particular animosity towards Molly, a young woman who challenges him. He is a clever amateur historian a bus-driver with a brick-sized shoulder chip about his lack of education, compared to the middle-class students who are also taking part in the camp. The bed, the borderline starvation and the wearing of prehistoric tunics are all part of a quest for authenticity, but it becomes quickly apparent that Bill’s views – on politics, women and power – are also relics. ![]() ![]() Along with a university professor and three students, they are there to live immersively in the past, recreating life in the Iron Age. That is, when she manages to sleep, given that her nights are spent in a rudimentary bed, handmade by her tyrannical father Bill, who has brought Silvie and her mother on an experimental archaeology trip. In her previous work, she moved easily from Victorian Manchester to 19th century Japan, and while the nightmare prologue of Ghost Wall may be historical, it haunts the present-day dreams of a teenage girl called Silvie. It's no surprise that the sod-turning opening of Sarah Moss's sixth novel begins in the past. An acceptance of the ways of ritual sacrifice of the lure of a bountiful harvest, the necessity of offering something to the land. All of this happens, not just with the acquiescence of her family and neighbours, but with their encouragement. ![]() No need to be rough, everyone knows what is coming.”Ī girl is bound, frightened and about to be cast into a bog. ![]()
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