Quake

by Kitty Mrosovsky, Maggie Gee (Foreword)

“A writer of great intelligence and sensibility who never received the critical attention she deserved.” —Amanda Mitchison, The Independent



A lush, labyrinthine novel of one woman’s erotic odyssey, and the final testament by a neglected writer of extraordinary talent,



An Italian After meeting on the slopes of Mount Etna, Rosario, a young Sicilian, accepts British student Jess’s invitation to join her at the villa where she and her friends are spending the summer. There, the enamored couple eat, drink, and make love amidst a backdrop of gossip, betrayal, and witty banter . . .



Or so Olivia, Rosario’s bookish, older lover back in London, imagines. Recently arrived in the UK, he stumbled into her English-language class, then insisted they meet up that evening. Olivia knows she has no claim on this man with whom she is infatuated, but still she finds herself increasingly curious about her unknown rival for his attentions. But the more desperate her avenues of enquiry, the more elusive become both her sexual adversary and Rosario himself. Finally Olivia breaks from her orderly routine and travels to Sicily in search of his origins, in the ruins of his childhood village, destroyed in the earthquake of 1968.



Unpublished during its author’s lifetime, this trailblazing, sensual portrait of female desire is Kitty Mrosovsky’s most powerful work. It was also her written in the mid-1980s, shortly before she was diagnosed with the HIV infection that led to her death. “Witty, illuminating and replete with life, an extraordinary one-off performance to savor before the theatre went dark,” writes Maggie Gee in her foreword, Quake is “one of the few works of art that perfectly capture the bliss and tragedy of those phosphorescent years.”

Genres: Fiction, Classics

288 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 2026

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

god this needed an editor bad but i won't hold it against her bc she died before publishing it

really admired the riskiness of this, i think that's something missing from a lot of what's being published right now, even if it didn't always fully land. some moments of brilliant writing. also can't hate a protaganist who tells her rich ex she needs money for an abortion so she can hire a private investigator to stalk her new lover's girlfriend

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bailed at p. 22 because I found it confusing and unevenly paced, but I'm glad this book is finally out. She's a fascinating figure and it's good her work is available now, so many years after her death.

[Sophia Eck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quake by Kitty Mrosovsky is the personal journey of a woman in mourning over all that she almost but truly never had, and that dives deeply into her own speculation upon the circumstances keeping her from what she so badly wants. It begins with her own written speculative snippet of a story, comprised of anecdotal supplication upon the unseen acquaintances of her lover, Rosario, and of how she imagines his life when he is not with her; You start the story with these imagined characters, briefly and shallowly, knowing not much less about them than our protagonist, Olivia, knows herself. You slowly gain context throughout the novel, putting anecdotes to names, circumstances to relationships, alongside Olivia and her melancholic yearning and her searches for whatever scraps of history she can manage to unearth about her elusive younger lover. Their relationship is often mirrored in Olivia’s attachment to her neighbors cat, Saffron, and how deeply she in both situations tries to keep what was never really hers in the first place. The crux of the novel is essentially the incredibly human lesson of how to live with the constant grief as a result of always desperately craving that which eludes or escapes you. The novel is deeply introspective, beautifully and carefully written, and I feel will be heavily enjoyed by those who often read Ernaux or Nin — fans of the literary exploration of the lone but eroticized woman and her emotionally reserved but internally honest condition. Comes out on June 9th, 2026.

[Dol Leander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel one reads understanding a world that did not exist at the time it was written, challenging the norms of then and even those of now. We follow our tragicomic protagonist, and by extension those she has fixated on, through an erotic odyssey of sorts. The characters are uninhibited by shame or fear of their own sexuality in a way that is freeing even as a reader. And yet, there is still grief present throughout. Sex is not just a simple pleasure here, instead it exists as a need equal to water and one that will never be fully satisfied. The text becomes dense with this painful yearning and melancholic metaphors. This is emphasized even more by the knowledge we hold outside of this fiction, that the author of this sensual masterpiece would later die of HIV-related complications. Introspective in its intensity, this exploration of desire is unshackled from societal expectation and impossible to look away from.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 see another status update for the review- but I just don’t like men enough for this book I think