Emily Maguire

We first see her, I think, wearing sort of patent leather shoes and a denim skirt and white stockings.

So they're very, very much out of place.

And the other little girl I think you're referring to is Lola, who's a little bit of a nasty piece of work, that one.

And we do, when we first see the girl's letter, it's actually her being bullied quite badly by Lola.

Yeah, it does build up to something.

And I was really worried by the time I got

by the time I got to the end because, you know, sort of as we've said, we go into all these deep consciousness of each character and so it can feel like you're reading kind of a collection of, you know, linked short stories but it does become evident that they are building to a joint conclusion of sorts and that it is going to in some way concern this cabin that we don't get an insight into the people there, we just get the view of them from the outside.

I think this is where it sort of brings in a really strong thrum throughout the whole book about Brexit really and this post-Brexit Britain and some of the really similar themes to her earlier book, Ghostwall, that we've mentioned really about xenophobia and outsiders and what it means to belong.

All these kind of things are sort of thrumming underneath and that is what's all sort of building up to the end here with this little girl and her mum in the noisy party cabin.

I mean, I absolutely loved it.

I read it very quickly.

It is a very short book.

I find that stream of consciousness writing here so immersive.

It just really fed for me that deep hunger that is only fed by fiction, the thing that makes it so addictive where you get

you know, at least the illusion of really knowing someone else different from yourself, of really getting that intimate sense of who they are and how they think and feel.

But at the same time, it was doing something more than that in that it was trying to show a larger, maybe not a truth, but sort of a larger examination of a particular society, a particular point of time in how each of these people in their own bubbles are all connected, are all sort of everyone thinks that they're just friends

making private choices all the time and that these things are connecting up and having an impulse.

And so, you know, it really is one I think I will return to.

I think the title zone is still my favourite Sarah Moss book, but this is absolutely a really, really fascinating book and so short, so concise, so beautifully written, and yet there's just layers and layers and layers there.

It's such visceral writing, this novel.