The High House

by Jessie Greengrass

Perched on a hill above a village by the sea, the high house has a mill, a vegetable garden and a barn full of supplies.

Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive there one day to find it cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally. Not quite a family, they learn to live together, and care for one another.

But there are limits even to what the ailing Grandy knows about how to survive, and, if the storm comes, it might not be enough.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Climate Change Fiction, Audiobook, Climate Change

277 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2021

About the author

Jessie Greengrass was born in 1982. She studied philosophy in Cambridge and London, where she now lives with her partner and child. Her story collection, An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It, won the Edge Hill Prize 2016 and a Somerset Maugham Award, and she was shortlisted for the PFD/Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Sight is her first novel.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An apocalyptic novel set in Suffolk.
A female climate scientist and her husband, secretly work to prepare their old High House which is on a bluff.. with a vegetable garden, windmill, tide pool, generator, a boat..
in the barn they have stockpiled clothes, toys, medicines, supplies which will be needed during the upcoming foreseen environmental crisis, flooding being the main concern.
They also enlist the help of a neighbor who is an old man who along with his granddaughter will move into the high house to help care for the couples teen daughter and very young son.
This was beautifully written and told in the voices of the three younger people who live in the high house!
Very good!
This novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Award

Thank you to Netgalley and Scibner for the ARC

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A climate scientist and her husband prepare a place for their young son and older daughter in the event of a climate disaster. High house is where four people will come as our climate spirals out of control and into a full fledged climate armegeddon. Although this is being called a post apocalyptic novel, I believe it a prescient warning of events that will actually happen and that in many ways is happening now.

A scary novel but a beautiful one as well, as it showcases a mother's absolute love for her child. It also shows how four disparite characters learn to live with each other as things are changing quickly around them. It is non linear, which is not my favorite format, but here it works because it is necessary to compare the before with the now. I kept thinking as I read this about how I would feel knowing I may be one of the last people on earth, or at least unable to learn if others exist.

A heartfelt but scary look at the future we may not have.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jessie Greengrass’s first novel, ‘Sight’ was shortlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize for fiction. While I haven’t read that one, reading this one, her sophomore novel, makes me consider that substantially skillful writing will be a factor in all her work. Digging into the perspective of three characters on the cusp of global warming’s altering of the physical and social landscape, Greengrass also explores the intimate layers of the solitary experience. I cared about every character, even the distancing Francesca, a climate scientist and activist, who consistently leaves the care of her young child, Pauly, in the care of his teenage half-sister, Caro, to go off and try to make a dent in the geopolitics of a world where catastrophic weather events were occurring with more frequency and greater cost.

The High House is a property in Suffolk that is left to Francesca by her uncle. The back history includes a flood that one of its older citizens, Grandy, remembers occurring when he was seven or eight. He recounts the immediate loss of life, but perhaps as important how changed everything was afterward, the living that could be made from fishing gone, an entire way of life destroyed in the blink of an eye. So many of our lives are so removed from direct care of the land, gardening, hunting, and gathering that it’s not something we like to take into account. That distance may also play a role in our ability to think about these things. Zucchini? You find that at the grocery store, right? Eggs? Yeah, chickens lay them. Or ducks. Ducks lay big eggs that are good for eating as well. The breakdown in supply chains that have come with the COVID pandemic has made some of us think about it more than we would like.

The High House is on a bluff and survived the devasting flood in its past. Would it hold up against what Francesca sees in store for the future? Believing that “it is a question of preparedness” she probes Grandy’s memories and resourcefulness, for Grandy, has been a caretaker for the entire village. It is through Grandy’s granddaughter, Sally, as well as Caro, Francesca’s step-daughter, that we will see much of the novel unspool. The last perspective is Pauly’s, Francesca’s son.

Why did Francesca even choose to have a child, knowing perhaps better than anyone on the planet what was in store? Pauly’s wonder and joy in life give the novel a bedrock of hope. His birth was difficult, perhaps foreshadowing that his life would not be easy. He loves birds and looks for them wherever he goes. The birds are being fooled by the weather, tricked into not migrating until finally, it is too late for them to do so. Pauly is especially watchful of a pair of egrets and no matter the weather, he wants to check on them every day.

When we got close to the nest, I made her stop and stay very still, both of us crouching in the mud until one or other of the birds rose, white and tall–a ghost heron, stalking toward the water. When it was late in the afternoon, and the sun was low and made the water burn gold with its reflection, the birds seemed to be illuminated, gilded at their edges like the angels in the church roof–and I was sure then that they possessed the power of protection. Grandy had told me that egrets like these didn’t really belong on our marsh but lived ordinarily much farther south, and so it seemed sensible to me to believe that they must have come with some purpose–that they must have come, somehow, for me.

I feel that the truncated list of characters might be a shortcoming for this novel, although it could be construed as a strength by some. Grandy had been a previous caretaker for the close-by village, yet the only villager we will meet is the vicar. I’m not a huge fan of the ending, but even so, it may be an appropriate one. This is not just an ordinary story about global warming and the changes it may bring to our future. Greengrass explores the human heart and the human story, making this a novel for anyone. I loved this author’s writing and hope to read her prize-winning first novel.

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The whole complicated system of modernity that had held us up, away from the earth, was crumbling, and we were becoming again what we had used to be: cold, and frightened of the weather, and frightened of the dark."

A couple years ago the creek a block from my apartment building flooded. This creek runs through town and occasionally exceeds its banks at certain low-lying areas.

This, however, was the first time it flooded near my building (as far as I know). It was surreal, watching the water rise, inching its way further and further until it was lapping the bottom of the house across the street.

The murky water continued to advance, crossing the street, right up to the edge of my building. Because I don't live on the ground floor, I wasn't worried about my apartment getting flooded. Yet I was still gripped by a feeling of apprehension, of dread. I couldn't stop watching.

I kept imagining living by a river, or worse, the sea, and watching the water surge, with nowhere to go but onto land. Imagining it swelling and carrying off everything not cemented to the earth - cars, garbage cans, children's toys, even people and animals.

When the waters rise and engulf their homes, where will the people go?

The High House imagines such a scenario, though it doesn't take much imagination to envision the seas rising. They already are. Though some deny climate change, most of us can see the changes happening all around us.

People might enjoy warm, sunny days in winter, in places where it used to be cold for months at a time. But there is nothing to enjoy about drought, wildfires, worsening storms, heat waves, and rising waters.

The High House is written from the POV of three characters - a young woman who grew up with her grandfather along the British coast, a young woman whose step-mother is a climate change activist, and the little boy who is her step-brother.

The little boy's mother, anticipating what was to come, prepared a house for young Pauly and Caro, and had Sally and her grandfather move in to take care of the place until Pauly and Caro would need to seek refuge there.

Why it was built anywhere close to the sea makes no sense to me. However, in order to watch the waters rise it is necessary for the house to be where it is, though set higher above the surrounding land.

Francesca stocks the house with supplies. She plants an orchard and gardens. She buys chickens for eggs. She prepares for the worst.

This book is atmospheric and tense. It provokes a deep sense of foreboding and also melancholy for all that will be lost, not just in the story but in real life.

It is beautifully written and the author pulled me into the story on the very first page. I had to know what would happen. Even though the story is predictable, I needed to see how Sally, Caro, and Pauly would survive, if they would survive.

My only complaint, dropping the rating from five stars to four, is that all three characters sound the same. Often I had to flip back a page or two to see who was "talking". Perhaps the audio format will have different actors for the different characters, or at least different tones of voice, and this won't be an issue.

However, I think that at least for those reading it in (e-)print, the story would have been better presented in the third person rather than the first. Their personalities were not different enough, their way of speaking was the same.

Other than that, I loved this book. It is a cautionary tale, of what could easily happen if we don't act soon. Those who enjoy quiet, post apocalyptic books will likely enjoy this one.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may seem perverse to read an apocalyptic novel when we've spent the past year living through a pandemic. I can certainly understand the hesitancy to engage in a fictional crisis when there's so much in reality to make us anxious or angry or mournful about what we've so recently lost. Yet, I think it's ingenious the way Jessie Greengrass has written about an environmental disaster which floods the country and leaves a small group of people subsisting on a small plot of elevated land. This story reassuringly solidifies the physical world at a time when our minds are consumed with calamity. When you're in a moment of deep distress it's common for someone to calmingly say to you “there, there.” To be reassured that “you are there” when feeling trapped in an interminable limbo is a precious comfort. Similarly, reading the accounts of three individuals recalling the events which brought them to this house and the stark nature of their meagre living energetically brings us back to the present moment.

Francesca is a world-renowned environmental scientist and activist who sees with alarming clarity that there will be a widespread disaster due to climate change. This has been highlighted by scientists and the media so often that it doesn't need to be explained in the narrative. The difference in this story is that Francesca knows it will occur sooner than we thought possible or were willing to admit so she makes provisions in a house she inherited and its surrounding farmland to prepare for this crisis. Unlike most survivalists, she does this not to save herself but her young son and his older step sister. She also arranges for a local young woman and her grandfather to live in this sanctuary to help maintain it. The fact of this cataclysmic event is inevitable from the start of the novel, but what Greengrass presents so meaningfully is the journey of how Caro and her brother Pauly and Sally and her grandfather (who is nicknamed Grandy) arrive at this place. Just because we know what has happened and where they will end up doesn't decrease the spellbinding tension of their flight or their sober realisation of the large-scale devastation.

Read my full review of The High House by Jessie Greengrass on LonesomeReader

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now shortlisted for the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and 2022 RSL Encore Prize for Second Novels (having previously been shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Prize and

The whole complicated system of modernity which had held us up, away from the earth, was crumbling, and we were becoming again what we had used to be: cold, and frightened of the weather, and frightened of the dark. Somehow, while we had all been busy, while we had been doing those small things which added up to living, the future had slipped into the present – and, despite the fact that we had known that it would come, the overwhelming feeling, now that it was here, was of surprise, like waking up one morning to find that you had been young, and now, all at once, you weren’t.

This book is one of the first published by Swift Press, a new independent publishing company launched in 2020 and part of the Independent Alliance.

It is written by Jessie Greengrass, author of “Sight”, a book which received some mixed reviews but that was in my view very deservedly shortlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize. That book was at heart a meditation on motherhood, with the narrator reflecting on her relationships with her mother, her psychoanalyst grandmother and her unborn daughter, but also featured a range of scientific and medical figures such as Wilhelm Röntgen, Sigmund Freud, John Hunter and Jan van Rymsdyk as well as recurring themes of stripping apart, examination, transitions, boundaries, and the difference and interaction between the superficial and deep.

One of the many any quotes I highlighted in that book (my copy was a forest of post in notes) was one from the narrator’s grandmother:

“Without reflection, without the capacity to trace our lives backwards and pick the patterns out, we become liable to act as animals do, minus foresight and according to a set of governing laws, which we have never taken the trouble to explore. Without reflection, we do little more than drift upon the surface of things and self-determination is an illusion.”.

And I think that quote has some interesting follow up in this book – a book which is ostensibly very different in fact the author has said (in an inews interview) “I felt strongly that I couldn’t do the same thing again ……. I wanted to write more of a novelly novel.” which the article then goes on to say means “one with a strong plot and characters who bear no direct resemblance to their author.”

And this book is effectively a Cli-Fi book, one which will I think be interesting for fans of Jenny Offil’s “Weather” while being very different in style from that to.

The set up of the novel is clear from very early on – as this is a novel which starts at the near-end and then goes back in time to help us see how we arrived there. Francesca, is a famous environmental scientist and activist and one who identifies that the planet is much closer to a cataclysmic climatological tipping point than the vast majority of the developed world who inhabit a duality of climate change panic and everyday living.

She didn’t have the habit that the rest of us were learning of having our minds in two places at once, of seeing two futures – that ordinary one of summer holidays and new school terms, of Christmases and birthdays and bank accounts in an endless, uneventful round, and the other one, the long and empty one we spoke about in hypotheticals, or didn’t speak about at all..

When she decides to have a child

Rather, it was a kind of furious defiance that had led her to have a child, despite all she believed about the future – a kind of pact with the world that, having increased her stake in it, she should try to protect what she had found to love..

She decides to prepare in advance something of a sanctuary for him to flee to when the crisis strikes – a holiday home somewhere on the East Coast (I think possibly Suffolk) of England, in a holiday home on high ground in a remote ex-fishing now second-home tourist village. She equips the home with a barn stocked full of provisions, a water-driven electrical generator, vegetable garden, spare boat (despite being someway above the sea); she arranges for a local man Grandy (who acts as odd job man for all the local holiday homes before a cardiac incident) and his daughter Sal to move to the house as live-in caretakers; and shortly before she and her husband are killed in the aftermath of a storm hitting (I think) Miami she asks her husband’s daughter – Caro – who has become Pauly’s de-facto carer to take him to the house.

The story is told in interspersed first party accounts by Caro, Sal and (to a lesser extent) Pauly – in in a rather languid and elegiac prose spaced out beautifully on the page

This is a novel which is very much about loss and mourning but also about how we, as humans, are unable to process that loss until after it happens, even when we objectively should be able to see that it is coming.

The village is just along the coast from a once thriving port town whose demise occurred both in a single event centuries before – a storm which washed away both the spit which protected its natural harbour and permanently moved the river mouth around which it was based – and then over many years as the town was subject to coastal erosion.

I was very much reminded of two books I recently read - “Shifting Sands – The Rise and Fall of the Glaven Ports” by Godfrey Sayers, and of the fate of Dunwich captured in Sebald’s “Rings of Saturn”. I was also reminded of the various societies examined by Jared Diamond in his “Collapse” such as the Easter Island and the Greensland Norse.

One of the most striking images in the book is of the fall of the last main building – the pub – with the locals having one last drink even as the pub was washed away around them.

But those events and this one were local

—it wasn’t the end of any world beyond this one. Neither the flood, nor the storm. A few square miles and a handful of people. The same things have happened everywhere, always. But isn’t every ending absolute to those who live through it?.

And the book itself covers an ending which is worldwide – but which again people are unwilling to face up to until too late.

I was reminded of many other examples: Imperial (the centuries leading to the Fall of Rome), Geopolitical (the World in the first 14 or so years of the 20th Century), Economical (the Roaring Twenties and later the Great Moderation).

This theme of loss and of not acting until it is too late also cleverly is reflected in the many relationships in the book – for example between Sal and her Grandy, Caro and Pauly, relationships whole gradual change goes unnoticed until fate or another person forces realisation (for example it takes Francesca’s quizzing of Grandy on the history of the area for Sal to realise how far she drifted from Grandy and her home village while absorbed in University life).

There are I think a few missteps. Although no natural historian – I was not sure the badger and even some of the bird adaptions to climate change quite made sense. The fate of the town seemed to me to rather mix up cliff edge collapse and gradual flooding. And the sections of Sal and Caro could for me only really be differentiated more in their content rather than in their first person voices.

But overall I found this a quietly powerful novel by a brilliant author.

—You think that you have time. And then, all at once, you don’t..

My thanks to Swift Press for an ARC via NetGalley

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A departure from earlier work, The High House’s the product of Jesse Greengrass’s desire to write a more “novelly novel,” in other words a character-based piece with a conventional format. At its heart The High House’s an exploration of the possible consequences of catastrophe sparked by largescale climate change. It’s a fairly well-crafted piece that focuses on a small band of survivors eking out an existence in the wake of an apocalyptic, climate-related event. These are Caro, her younger step-brother Pauly, Sally and her grandfather Grundy. They’re brought together by Caro’s stepmother Francesca a globally-renowned, climate change activist/scientist and one of the few who realises the world’s well past the tipping-point that marks certain calamity. As a way of ensuring some kind of future for her small son, Francesca prepares what many reviews refer to as an ark, – although the ark reference sidesteps obvious similarities between Francesca’s plans and the wealthy, egocentric, doomsday preppers profiled in magazines like the New Yorker, so evading pertinent questions about inequality versus privilege in Greengrass's scenario. Although, to be fair, these issues are briefly referenced in Greengrass’s story. This refuge’s the High House, secluded, relatively sheltered, its position and Francesca’s provisions enable her carefully selected group to evade a flood of biblical proportions – inspired by Greengrass’s interest in the North Sea flood of 1953 which laid waste to whole swathes of Europe including parts of England.

The key features of the period preceding Greengrass's flood are all too familiar: species death on an increasing scale, bizarre weather conditions, dwindling insect populations, and gradually-encroaching environmental blight. For me, and I suspect many other readers, Greengrass's portrayal of her characters’ response to these potentially cataclysmic shift’s equally recognisable. To take one example Caro, Francesca’s stepdaughter, is unable to deal with her fear of what the future might hold so she tries not to think about it: her mental state perpetually suspended between overwhelming anxiety and deflection/denial’s particularly well-realised, although what Greengrass’s aiming for in chronicling this is less clear to me. I’m not sure if Greengrass is offering her readers an elegy in anticipation of certain doom, an oblique stab at some kind of wake-up call or, perhaps, a cathartic means of rehearsing for an inevitably bleak, real-life outcome through fiction. If Greengrass's piece’s intended to arouse some sort of practical reaction I’m not convinced it’ll have any actual impact beyond brief jolts of recognition. My perspective’s not entirely based on Greengrass’s vision, frankly I’m not persuaded that cli-fi's politically significant in any concrete sense. I don't see people reading this, then laying it down and rushing out to join Extinction Rebellion or any of the groups actively working to avert looming, environmental devastation.

Greengrass’s story touches on important issues around capitalism, the corporatisation of the countryside, farming and food chains but these are awkwardly tangled up with - what might be perceived - as more conservative messages about heritage and the preservation of traditional rural communities. These lost communities are partly embodied by Grundy. He’s a slightly stock, sage elder who teaches the others how to live off the land. He’s sketchily presented and it seemed strange that such a central figure’s the only one not given a direct voice, unlike Sally, Caro and Pauly. He’s also a puzzling character since he can so easily be read as symbolic of age-old patriarchal wisdom which is jarring in an otherwise woman-centred piece. One in which the intimate and the broadly maternal are held up as beacons of hope. In interviews about her inspirations for The High House Greengrass mentions vintage, post-apocalyptic fiction, elsewhere she’s talked about her fascination with John Christopher’s The Death of Grass and Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. One thing I particularly liked about The High House was the unexpected pairing of something verging on contemporary Hampstead novel with more popular tropes tracing back to classic, post-apocalyptic SF - seen in this way the novel made a lot more sense. So, despite my general reservations, including those about a relatively elite group standing for humanity yet again, some aspects of this were unexpectedly appealing. The characters’ voices could be more distinctive but other positives were Greengrass’s supple prose style and her vivid, richly textured, descriptive passages. These were the redeeming features which drew me in and were enough to hold my attention throughout.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Swift Press for a digital review copy

[Chantal Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The High House' quietly destroyed me, because it portrays an oncoming future that I already believe in.

That aside, this is an incredibly unique piece of climate fiction. I've never quite come across one like it - the way it focuses on the liminal space between our present, and the dystopic, climate-broken future that inevitably awaits us.

I am often frustrated by lack of plot in literary fiction, and perhaps one could level that charge at 'The High House', because I suppose it doesn't follow usual conventions. But I found such beauty and poignancy in all the little moments described, in the characters' relationships. In one way, it feels like a braid of short stories, which is perhaps in part due to the short length of most chapters (some pages only contain a single paragraph).

There is nothing else to say, except that I was gripped, and I was devastated.

(With thanks to Swift Press and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Climate scientist Francesca anticipated the increased erratic weather patterns, melting glaciers, and severe flooding that would cause worldwide disasters. "The High House" takes us to a home on a high hill in Suffolk surrounded by gardens, a barn full of supplies, and a small mill and generator powered by water. Francesca set up this home for her toddler son and her teenage stepdaughter. She also arranged to have an old caretaker/handyman and his granddaughter move in as caretakers of the home. The last message from Francesca and her husband directed the two children to travel to the High House to shelter safely.

This dystopian novel is written in short, choppy segments from various perspectives, giving us quick glimpses of important events that happen to the four people living in the High House. The wise grandfather is able to pass on some of his skills, helping the small group to be mostly self-sufficient. They are fortunate that no one raided their barn of supplies. Even during times of despair, the three adults in the house are involved in raising the young child. Fulfilling that responsibility and the giving of love seems to help them keep going as a team of "co-parents."

Periods of drought alternate with months of rain. Tent cities of refugees, driven from their homes by floods, are living in the higher altitudes of Britain. One wonders how long people will be able to live when they do not possess traditional survival skills, and weather patterns destroy crops.

The book did raise interesting ideas about climate change. The short, choppy passages did not allow for a close emotional connection to the characters. But maybe the author wanted to give the book a bleak, chilly tone to add to the dystopian atmosphere. 3.5 stars.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bin ich froh, dass ich Jessie Greengrass mit diesem Roman noch eine Chance geben habe, denn er ist meiner Meinung nach grandios. Mit ihrem letzten Buch Was wir voneinander wissen hatte ich enorme Schwierigkeiten, denn der Sprachstil war mir zu überambitioniert und der Plot antiseptisch unverknüpft. Nun hat sich die Autorin jedoch selbst übertroffen, sie schreibt eine sehr ungewöhnliche, innovative Dystopie, in der die Welt untergeht, aber dies wird nicht mit Action und Überlebenskampf bis aufs Messer zelebriert, sondern mit leisen Zwischentönen beschrieben. Soo gut!

Eine sehr nahe, sehr realistische Zukunft wird also konzipiert, in der unsere Welt, respektive die Menschheit, infolge des Klimawandels nach und nach untergeht. Die Protagonisten in Form einer Klima-Aktivistenfamilie, die Eltern beide aus dem universitären Bereich, haben jahrelang gewarnt, versucht, die Öffentlichkeit mit Vorträgen, Artikeln und Aktionen aufzurütteln, aber nichts wurde unternommen.

Francesca hat sich trotz der Gesamtsituation entschieden, beziehungsweise aus Egoismus korrumpieren lassen, ein Baby zu bekommen, kann Pauly aber aus Angst um die Welt und Gesellschaft keine Mutter sein und ihm Sicherheit geben. Im Gegenteil, sie überträgt ihre Paranoia, die berechtigten Befürchtungen und die drohenden Katastrophenprognosen auf die gesamte Familie und ist ständig unterwegs, um die Welt zu retten. In sehr sensiblen Tönen wird hier die Problematik einer veritablen Beziehungsstörung in der Familie thematisiert. Ausbaden muss das ihre Stieftochter Caro, die sich schon in jüngsten Jahren um Pauly kümmern und als Ersatzmutter einspringen muss. Interessant ist auch die Rolle des Vaters, er supportet ausschließlich seine Frau, das völlig überforderte kleine Mädchen Caro ist mit dem Baby Pauly auf sich alleine gestellt. Alles in allem also eine höchst dysfunktionale Familie vor dem Hintergrund des Untergangs der Menschheit.

Doch ganz so gleichgültig gegen ihre Kinder, wie es scheint, waren die Eltern dann doch nicht. Als beide bei einer Sturzflut während einer Klimakonferenz sterben, kommt heraus, dass sie für Pauly und Caro im Sommerhaus minutiös ein Refugium eingerichtet haben, das die Klimakatastrophe überdauern soll. Warum Caro dies nach und nach realisiert, ist der Umstand, dass die Eltern für wirklich alles gesorgt haben, auch für ausreichend Kinderkleidung für die beiden. Zudem haben sie das sehr abgelegene, versteckte und weit über dem Meeresspiegel gelegene Land auf Selbstversorgung eingerichtet, mit Mühle, Generator, Tieren, Booten und Medikamenten. Dass die Klimaaktivisten befürchteten, nicht zu überleben, wird auch bald klar, denn sie besorgten Pauly und Caro zwei Mitbewohner, Sally und ihren Großvater.

Nun wird erzählt, wie dieses Quartett lebt, wie die Menschen im Dorf nach und nach verschwinden, die Sommertouristen nicht mehr kommen, wie sie sich selbst versorgen, mit allen Problemen, wie der Kälte im Winter, der anstrengenden Nahrungsmittelproduktion und dem sorgsamen Umgang mit den Vorräten, die nicht mehr erzeugt werden können. Die Katastrophe bricht nicht mit einem Paukenschlag ins Leben der Protagonisten ein, sondern es passiert ein ganz langsames Fade-Out. Es scheint fast so, als wäre diese Wohngemeinschaft wieder bei der Gesellschaft der ersten Menschen in Europa angekommen, selbstverständlich mit ein paar Luxusvorräten, wie Antibiotika und Morphium ausgestattet.

"Das ganze komplizierte System der modernen Welt, das uns aufrechterhalten, von der Erde entfremdet hatte, bröckelte nun, machte uns wieder zu dem, was wir einst gewesen waren: frierend, voller Angst vor dem Wetter und voller Angst vor der Dunktelheit. Während wir alle irgendwie beschäftigt gewesen waren mit diesen ganzen Nichtigkeiten, die in Summe unser Leben ausmachten, hatte sich die Zukunft in die Gegenwart geschlichen – und obgleich wir gewusst hatten, dass es kommen würde, reagierten wir jetzt, da es so weit war, mit überwältigter Überraschung, so, wie wenn man morgens aufwacht und erkennt, dass man einst jung gewesen sein mochte, es aber nun, praktisch über Nacht, nicht mehr war."

Allmählich wachsen alle in ihre Rolle hinein, finden sich in die neue Situation, wie es Menschen schon seit Urzeiten konnten, und leben ein sehr einfaches Leben, das relativ gemächlich abläuft und gelegentlich durch den Kampf gegen die Natur unterbrochen wird. Opa Grandy stirbt auch völlig unspektakulär an einer Krankheit, die durch sein Alter verursacht wird.

Das war übrigens jener innovative Aspekt des Romans, der mir neben der grandiosen Figurenentwicklung am meisten gefallen hat. Dass dieser Untergang mit so vielen Zwischentönen beschrieben wird. Das Beziehungsgeflecht zwischen allen Figuren wird tief und grandios analysiert. Wir lernen Caro sehr intensiv kennen, überwinden ihren Groll gegen die Eltern, leben mit ihren Überforderungen und den daraus resultierenden psychischen Traumata, sind live bei Reibereien zwischen Caro und Sally dabei, die aber überwunden werden. Auch Sally, die letztendlich alles zusammenhält und Pauly werden sehr gut skizziert, ebenso wie Grandy, der vor seinem Tod sein Wissen über Natur und Nahrungsmittelproduktion noch weitergeben kann.

Das Ende ist offen und trotzdem tröstlich. Fast scheint es so, als ob Jeff Goldblums Satz aus Jurassic Park: „Die Natur findet immer einen Weg“ auch auf die Menschheit anzuwenden wäre.

Fazit: Begeisternd, gar nichts zu kritisieren! Absolute Leseempfehlung und schon wieder ein Buchstoffhöhepunkt!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I picked this up. And the answer is really nothing more than what’s in the blurb.

In a probably not-so-distant future, where climate change is ravaging the world, where storms are off-the-charts, unpredictable, and cause mass destruction, erasing entire cities and islands off the map and changing coastlines, we follow the story of four characters eeking out a meager survival in an undisclosed location off the coast of England. The house is called High House, and the characters we follow are primarily Sally and Caro, though we get glimpses of Pauly and third party inclusion of Grandy, Sally’s Grandfather.

And it is BLEAK. And terrifying. Inescapable.

This is a slow moving, character driven story. We see the climate continuously change throughout, there’s talk about summers getting hotter and lasting longer, the storms getting bigger, birds missing their migrations, and it just keeps ramping up and up in such a way that just feels hopeless.

It is beautifully, beautifully written. I only highlighted the four passages, but there were plenty of others I could have chosen from. (I didn’t, because a lot of them already were highlighted and it makes me feel so lame to just copy over the stuff that’s already been highlighted.)

We do get glimpses of hope in Pauly, a child for much of the book, to lift our spirits a bit.

I think what I loved most about this was the way that it spoke to me, the average Jane, who probably doesn’t know enough to be scared about it the way I should be. The way it’s easy to become complacent with what’s happening if it feels distant or far away. The way you can care and try to do your part but in order to just go on not being a basket case all the time there’s some part of you that almost has to set it aside just to get through the day without freaking out. This book felt like a wake up call.

I probably haven’t don’t it justice, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. It will likely be one of those select few books I dare to reread in the future.

My only complaint is the way the story is structured. It’s oddly told in only five chapters with multiple scene breaks. The scene breaks made it more bearable but then there were POV switches (clearly marked within the chapter) that made it feel like it could have been broken down a bit more to feel more readable? I likely wouldn’t have even noticed but I read it on kindle and irks me when it says I have an hour left in my chapter.

But that’s a small complaint. Absolutely a book I’d recommend. Will be checking out more from this author in the future.

[Justine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this as much as I had hoped to. It was so melancholy. Even The Road had sparks of hopefulness (deeply buried, admittedly, but there).

Similar, but preferred for me was A Children's Bible. The High House felt like the story of a slow and inevitable unwinding, lacking the essential thing that keeps people wanting to live, not just survive.

...watching her I thought that it was not defeat at all. Rather, it was a kind of furious defiance that had led her to have a child, despite all she believed about the future - a kind of pact with the world that, having increased her stake in it, she should try to protect what she had found to love.

[Barbara K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t read post-apocalyptic fiction as a rule. Didn’t even have a shelf for it. Coping with current reality is more than enough for me; facing into an even more dismal future seems like a bit too much.

But I had this one on my shelf as a result of Jenna’s stellar review, and was prompted to read it this week by a news article describing the disappearance of islands off the coast of Virginia as a result of rising water levels. Brought the topic close to home since that’s just a couple of hours away.

On so many levels this book can be considered exquisite. The concept, certainly. A climate scientist is frustrated with the resistance of the powers that be and the rest of the inhabitants of the first world to respond to the looming threat of planet-wide disaster. Anticipating the worst, she retrofits a family home built on high ground in a coastal community to be a survival retreat for her son and her stepdaughter, along with an elderly local who is caretaker for the seasonal homes in the area and his granddaughter. This foresight puts these four people in an advantageous position when storms increase in volatility and sea levels begin rising precipitously.

This premise provides an opportunity to expand on what would be needed for survival when the systems that make the world work no longer function. But the writing, also exquisite, doesn’t just tell a story but penetrates the emotional responses of all of the characters to what is happening, and to one another.

Here are some of the stepdaughter’s thoughts as she begins to realize, in her late teens but before she is forced to retreat to The High House, that her world may be threatened:

We were protected by our houses and our educations and our high-street shopping centers. We had the habit of luck and power, and couldn’t understand that they were not our right. We saw that the situation was bad, elsewhere, but surely things would work out, because didn’t they always, for us? We were paralyzed, unable to plan either for a future in which all was well, or for one in which it wasn’t.

Isn’t it true that the test of your appreciation of a book is your desire to get back to it after you’ve been pulled away to (god forbid) work, or maybe sleep? And that you are disappointed when the story ends? I felt that way about this book. It is definitely one of my favorite reads for the year.

Bookending my read of this book was another news article, this one about how Lake Powell, source of electricity for much of the SW US, may go dry as early as next summer. Our future gets scarier every day. Thank god we have books to retreat to.

By the way, here’s a link to Jenna’s brilliant review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Natalie "Curling up with a Coffee and a Kindle" Laird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Random Things Tours for my paperback copy and spot on the blog tour of this haunting and beautiful read!
So haunting, and so so beautifully written. I had to keep rereading lines to absorb their beauty, but this was such a compelling read I finished it in a day.
I've been feeling like climate change was some far away disaster that we are slowing down, but this book brings it to the forefront of the reader's mind and screams it into your face. I am still thinking about the impact of this book on my life and behaviour.
The characters are all strong, and whilst I didn't connect with Sally, I loved Caro and her little brother Pauly. I did however struggle with the characters' relationships to each other and how their lives collided. It wasn't until I was over half way that I really understood how they came to live together in the high house, and even now I feel a little confused. Francesca inherited the house from her uncle, but how did Sally and Grandy end up there? Did Francesca ask Grandy to be caretaker there, seeing as he was looking after the village?
This confusion I have was probably not helped by the timelines through the book. It changed a lot, and there were the 'i' and 'ii' breaks throughout each chapter that would have been clearer to me if the author had used actual dates.
This was a stunning and deeply affecting novel that will certainly stay with me.

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vay, beklentimin çok ötesinde beğendim bu kitabı. Son dönemde gitgide daha fazla örneğini görmeye başladığımız “ekodistopya” türündeki romanlardan biri kendisi, benim de türden okuduğum ilk örnek. İklim aktivisti bir bilim kadınının dünyanın gittiği yeri görüp çocuklarının hayatta kalması için inşa ettiği bir evin öyküsünü ve bildiğimiz anlamda dünya ortadan kaybolurken çocukların orada kurmaya çabaladığı yaşamlarını okuyoruz. Bu kitapta dünyamızın aslında muhtemelen hiç uzak olmayan ve yüzleşmemizin yakın olduğu geleceğine dair sert uyarılarla beraber sevmeye, kaybetmeye, tutunmaya dair de çok şey var. Merakla okuyacağımı, sürükleneceğimi tahmin ediyordum ama sanırım bu kadar incelikli bir dille yazılmış bu derinlikte bir anlatı beklemiyordum. Herkesin kolaylıkla okuyabileceği bir kitap ve fakat bir yandan da çok güçlü. Greengrass’ın Women's Fiction Prize adayı olan diğer eseri “Bakış”ı da muhakkak okuyacağım. “Oysa bozulmuş, kırılmış bir şeyi sevmek, sağlam bir şeyi sevmekten daha kolay olabilirdi işte. (…) Birinin bize ihtiyacı olduğunu söylediğimizde çoğunlukla kastettiğimiz, aslında bizim onlara ihtiyaç duyduğumuzdur; veya onların bize ihtiyaç duymasına gereksinimimiz olduğu. Bu durum, bize bir konum sağlar, sınırlarımızın nereye uzandığını gösterir.”

[Renee Godding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Climate change and family drama converge to create a melancholic yet fairly formulaic story in this apocalyptic sophomore novel by Jessie Greengrass.

Every once in a while a debut comes along that is só impressive that I will instantly move the author to the top of my “to watch list” for the upcoming years. 2018 brought me two such debuts: Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under, and Jessie Greengrass’ Sight,. Although Sight, was met with mixed reviews, I was firmly in the camp of 5-star ratings, blow away by her skill for beautiful prose, unique format and insightful exploration of the anxieties of motherhood and body to be found within. Confirmed upon recent reread, it remains as one of my favourite novels on the subject I’ve read to date. The High House is something completely different, but impressive all the same.

Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive at the High House after her father and stepmother fall victim to a faraway climate disaster. A legacy from their climate-scientist stepmother, who predicted this future with scary accuracy, the High House is a converted summer home, set up to be refuge against the rising tides. Left with the house’s caretaker Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, the two pairs learn to live together in the wake of tragedy, dwindling supplies and an uncertain future.

The biggest selling-point of this novel for me was the vivid melancholic atmosphere, furthered by Greengrass’s strong prose. Although the story is one that will feel familiar if you’ve read more within the cli-fi genre, it’s that narrative voice that makes it worth reading. The same insight in characters psychology and family-relationships I adored from her before is also on display here. The biggest diversion from Sight, is a more accessible, more traditional and at times formulaic style. Whereas I’ve read very few books like Sight, I’ve read many books like The High House. This can work either of two ways: give The High House a bit more mainstream appeal (which based on the high average rating seems the case), or make it more likely to blend into the background within its genre.

If you’re in the market for a well-executed cli-fi novel in the vein of Maja Lunde's Klimakvartetten Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour or Charlotte McConaghy Migrations, or just looking for a beautiful intimate family portrait: The High House is one to keep an eye out for.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not often in the mood to pick up a novel about climate change disaster. I fear it will make me sad and pessimistic. And I also fear it may be badly done.

In this case I am glad I read it. It is indeed quite a bleak novel but also a very good and well-written one. There is warmth too, and round characters. It managed to make me reflect on all that would be lost if we reach a tipping point.

It is about life during a climate-change induced apocalypse, where floods and superstorms are destroying civilisation, faster than most expected. In short, a group of four people try to survive in their High House, safe on a hill near what was once an English beach. They are well-prepared by an environmentalist who saw disaster coming, but still life is tough, precarious and psychologically almost unbearable. All these characters are well-drawn and some really came to life for me.

We know from the start what has happened and then are being told how it happened from the different perspectives of our three protagonists. This structure works really well for dramatic effect.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Swift Press for an arc

[Buchdoktor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paulys Eltern waren Journalisten und Umweltaktivisten. Erst Jahre später wird deutlich, wie akribisch seine Mutter Francesca die Zuflucht ihres einzigen Kindes nach einer globalen Umweltkatastrophe geplant hatte. Das High House auf einer Kiesbank in der Flussmündung, fernab von anderen Menschen gelegen, war völlig autark, vorausgesetzt, seine Bewohner hatten gelernt mit Wassermühle, Trinkwasserbrunnen und Kohleherd umzugehen. Der drohende Weltuntergang war schon immer Francescas Thema gewesen. Sie konnte sich darüber aufregen, dass andere Menschen in den Tag hinein lebten, während sie unermüdlich um die Welt reiste, um deren Bewohner in letzter Minute noch aufzurütteln. Als Paulys ältere Halbschwester Caroline die Verantwortung für ihren Bruder übernimmt und mit ihm ins High House flüchtet, beginnt für sie ein neues Leben, als wären die Geschwister außer Sally und ihrem Grandy auf der Landzunge die einzigen Menschen.

Präzise entsteht das Bild eines großzügigen Anwesens am Meer mit Obst- und Gemüsegarten, Wäldchen, Gezeitentümpeln am Strand und einem funktionierenden Haushalt. Sallys Großvater Grandy, der schon immer eine Art Hausmeister für das gesamte Dorf war, hat seinen drei Schülern alle Fertigkeiten beigebracht, die in dem düsteren Haus gebraucht werden. 20 Jahre später besteht das Leben allein aus der Suche Nach Nahrung und Wärme. Rückblickend wird deutlich, dass die Menschen ihre letzte Chance nicht genutzt hatten und Paulys Eltern sich und ihr privates Glück damals vergeblich opferten.

Die dystopische Geschichte einer verdrängten Klimakrise wird auf mehreren überlappenden Zeit- und Wissensebenen von drei Icherzählern entfaltet. Wie in Dystopien nicht ungewöhnlich, ließ mich die kleine Zwangsgemeinschaft darüber rätseln, wie realistisch Paulys Überleben auf die Dauer sein wird – ohne das Wissen des lebensklugen Grandy. Berührt hat mich besonders Paulys Sichtweise, der sich viel selbst erschließen muss, weil er an die Welt vor der Apokalypse nur wenig Erinnerungen hat.

Sally Greengrass‘ präziser Strich lässt unvergessliche Bilder entstehen. Ihr Blick in die Innenwelt einer Kleinfamilie vor der Folie einer gesichtslosen Außenwelt zeigt Empathie und psychologisches Geschick. Völlig anders als in ihrem spröde wirkenden „Was wir voneinander wissen“ habe ich mit diesen Figuren mitgefühlt und -gelitten. Neben der dystopischen Ebene geht es auf der Beziehungsebene um Mutterschaft, soziale Elternschaft, die Geschwisterbeziehung, sowie den gesellschaftlichen Graben zwischen Besitzenden, Wissenden und „den Anderen“.

Ein großartiger Roman.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this gripping and beautifully written climate change-disaster story of four people living in a refuge, the High House. Planned and provisioned over years by Francesca, a climate scientist and activist, for her stepdaughter Caroline “Caro”, and son Paul “Pauly”, and a caretaker and his granddaughter, Sally. The four spend years together, while the seas flood much of the world, leaving them on an island and growing ever more isolated.

The story begins at a point when Caro, Pauly and Sal are much older, and looking back over their childhoods, and then many years at the High House. We see how careful and farsighted Francesca was, but even with all her planning, the High House survivors understand that eventually they will run out of supplies through use, spoilage and age, and what then will differentiate them from all the others who died earlier in the disasters on the planet, except that theirs will be a long, slow death.

The story is quiet, and the pacing is measured, matching the lives of those in High House, and making the devastation and losses outside this tiny place of safety all the more horrifying.

Though beautifully written, I found it hard to distinguish between Caro’s and Sal’s perspectives, and found myself backtracking occasionally to recheck whose experience I was in.

This is still a terrific though pretty melancholic book.

Thank you to Edelweiss and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for my review.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is so hard to remember, now, what it felt like to live in that space between two futures, fitting our whole lives into the gap between fear and certainty…
from The High House by Jessie Greengrass

Every week there is news about how the world is changing. The polar ice melting, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather. We have been warned for so many years about the future of the earth, and we still think it is in the future. But it is here.

When I imagine the lives our children and grandchildren will have, I am overwhelmed. Every time I turn the heat up a notch, open a delivered meal to discover Styrofoam and plastic containers, every time I run the washing machine or turn on the oven or take a warm shower, I am aware that these things I have done all my life are luxuries enjoyed by a few, over a short period of time, and have contributed to our impending crisis.

In The High House, Jessie Greengrass imagines how a few people adapt and survive the floods that overcome their village, isolated in a house on a hill.

Francesca loved her child so much, she traveled the world to warn about climate change, hoping it is not too late to stave off disaster. The boy, Pauly, is left in the care of his half-sister Caro, and he becomes more attached to her than his parents. Francesca and the children’s father renovate and outfit The High House as an escape when disaster strikes. She asks neighbors to be caretakers of the house on a hill, caring for the orchard and fields, gardens and hens. Gramps remembers the old world, and with his granddaughter Sally, are waiting at the house when Caro and Pauly are warned to flee London.

The four make up a new family, Gramps teaching the children skills for survival. Francesca had provided a hoard of essentials–clothes and medical supplies and even toys for Pauly– and a generator to last 100 years. It is a hard life, working every day to provide food and shelter. When the sea rises, the house becomes an island, and they are cut off from the world.

The whole complicated system of modernity that had held us up, away from the earth, was crumbling, and we were becoming again what we had used to be: cold, and frightened of the weather, and frightened of the dark.
from The High House by Jesse Greengrass

Caro and Sally vie to mother Pauly. Each needs him. Their maternal instincts keep him safe and healthy. He doesn’t remember the old world or his parents. He is content, adaptable.

The High House is an ark without two of everything. Gramps ages and passes. Some day, the girls will age and Pauly will be alone. Francesca has saved her child, but the story will end with him.

I enjoyed this novel’s beautiful writing, a story almost gentile, full of love, although about a horrendous and chilling future. It is a story about the love for a child, the maternal drive to save a child. If only we saw all children as our own, perhaps we would find the strength to change our lives and alter what seems to be an inevitable future.

I received an ARC from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Varsha Ravi · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

There's a certain kind of poignancy tinged with guilt in pondering over our collective future and that of our planet. Almost like being voluntarily strapped in for this unhinged, self-destructive ride off a cliff while we carry on with banal, everyday concerns with the delusion that there is still time. The High House, in that regard, is perhaps one of the best pieces of climate fiction there is. Set in a not too distant future, but one where climate change and global warming have been left unchecked, it begins in incremental bouts, natural disasters, unpredictable weather patterns, food shortage, droughts, floods affecting different pockets of the world. While the rest are stunned by the magnitude of the devastation, they soon resign to their old ways, clinging on to any thread of normalcy until disaster reaches their doorstep.

Francesca, an environmental scientist, and climate activist has long seen this inevitable end coming. She inherits the High House, a remote sanctuary cut off from the neighbouring villages and situated on significantly higher ground from her uncle. Here, between her frequent travels, often leaving her young baby under the care of her teenage step-daughter, Caro, she begins to meticulously plan a self-sufficient ark of sorts. To achieve this, she takes the help of two locals, Sally and her grandfather, fondly referred to as Grandy, to maintain the High House in her absence and provide a shelter for her child, Pauly and Caro to live in, when the situation becomes dire.

Its narrated from multiple points of view, primarily Sally and Caro’s perspectives, but you also get a few shorter chapters from Pauly. You see each of their lives unfold, memories colliding, leading up to the point of them living together in the High House. The narration is both insular, following the daily interactions of these characters and also grand in providing a lens to observe humanity, who and what we choose to save when overwhelmed beyond comprehension. The distant threats and suffering slowly muted, tuned out like static in the background. You observe, watch and wait with this makeshift family from the vantage point of the High House as seasons turn unpredictable, the weather arbitrary, and the very fabric of infrastructure gradually eke out and slip away into the watery depths of the rising floods. The High House is climate fiction at its realistic best, acutely painful, haunting, and deeply sobering.

[Ann Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Special thanks to Simon and Schuster for the ARC of this fantastic book. Look for this book, it is to be published January 4th, 2022.

At first I thought this book wasn't for me, but I'm a depressed person already so reading about four people trying to survive after a a climatic disaster is no problem for me to read, especially since I fear that this can and will probably happen someday. It is definitely not far-fetched.

We have Caro, and her younger brother Pauly, who come to High House after the climactic disaster take their father and stepmother who actually predicted this apocalypse would happen, and built this summer house precisely for this disaster, so they come to the party a little prepared. High House was built for this reason and prediction on a high hill, where caretaker of High House Grandy and his granddaughter Sally are already at because of the rising of water in their small village

The four try to live together at High House , while the rising water threatens to overtake the village and has already destroyed the rest of the world, with limited supplies, limited safety, and limits to what Grandy can teach them before his health fails him.

Told by , 3 POVs, Caro, Pauly, and Sally, this book is about coming together in the face of fear of extinction and the sacrifice and human effort it takes to survive.

Thrilling and very appropriate in our time.

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8aUx...

[Lydia Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We liked to watch the light fade as the sun fell behind us, picking out the branches of the trees in gold, and we liked to watch the swallows wheel and swoop, diving to catch the insects which hummed above the water chanels - until, one year they didn’t come. May turned to June, June to July, and Grandy and I waited but they didn’t come….”

It is very difficult to do this book, The High House by Jessie Greengrass, the justice it deserves in a review. I am worried about putting people off when mentioning that the central theme is one of climatic catastrophe and how four people cope with it thanks to the forward thinking of one.

What makes this beautifully written book horrifying is that the premise is sadly not particularly far fetched. Tiny day-to-day changes we learn to accept as the norm until one day, there are no options left. I found myself vividly imagining how my own family would cope with this situation.

Already shortlisted for a Costa Book Award, this novel is both horrifying - and a work of art. Heartbreaking but also heartwarming. As many others are saying it is literally impossible to put down and the combination of short narratives make it a speedy reading experience.

I received my copy courtesy of Swift Books & Random Book tours in return for an honest review. My honest opinion is that it could just be the best book I’ve ever read!!

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the end, we always choose ourselves. Or our children. We are only here because Francesca couldn't bear the thought of Pauly drowning, but the high house isn't an ark. We aren't really saved. We are only the last ones.

This is my second Greengrass and I think I might have to conclude sadly that she's not a writer for me. The ideological content drives this book and while I have the greatest sympathy for the eco message, I can't help feeling that the same effect could have been achieved in shorter, non-fictional pieces and not much is added by this being a novel - in fact, it's more a climate change manifesto.

Structurally, this is one of those pass-the-baton narratives where all the voices are the same and only the name at the top of each section tells us who is speaking. There's a similar focus on motherhood as in the earlier Sight, and the High House is a form of Noah's Ark, though with a less hopeful ending. An important message, for sure, but this was an unengaging and even predictable read for me.

[Jacki (Julia Flyte) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The High House took my breath away. It's set in the near future, in a world transformed by climate change, with cities lost to rising sea levels, ferocious weather events and drought. This is similar territory to Wolfe Island and Migrations, but the scope here is smaller and more intimate and it affected me more deeply than those books.

Three people are living in the "high house" - an otherwise ordinary house tucked away in the countryside but it's positioned safely above the water level. Over the course of the book we learn their stories and how they came to be here.

It is poetic, it is sad, it is scary and grim and now it's over I feel a bit dazed and drained. Definitely one of my books of the year.

[Laura • lauralovestoread · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know when I can’t stop thinking about a book that it has to be a five star read for me. I really enjoyed THE HIGH HOUSE, and have found I really like a good apocalyptic storyline.

I’ve watched enough documentaries about our declining earth and the speed in which we are destroying our planet that this type of story could very much happen. That my friends, is what makes this kind of read so realistic and scary to me.

Francesca is a Mother and famous scientist and activist who realizes that the end is near, with a pending flood. In order to secure her son Pauly and his older sister Caro a place of safety, she sets about preparing a place at the High House.

*many thanks to Scribner for the gifted copy for review. All opinions are my own

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seem to be a bit of of step with the majority, but... I found this readable but formulaic. For a structure based on multiple narrative voices I found the girls barely differentiated, and the taciturn Grandy a fairly formulaic wise/gnomic elder. Pauly's voice (remeniscent of Jack in Room) was the most engaging. A solid 'OK'.

[Delphine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is a quiet, yet deeply unsettling depiction of life in the midst of the climate crisis, after the tipping point is reached and extreme weather conditions can no longer be predicted.

Francesca, a fiercy and angry climate scientist,has predicted this evolution all along and has been preparing a safe house for her son Pauly and her stepdaughter Caro. They find refuge in the ‘high house’, along with the elderly caretaker Grandy and his granddaughter Sally.

Expect no heavy plot developements in ‘The high house’, Greengrass focuses on the characters’ handling of the situation. Whilst Pauly seeks comfort in observing birds, Caro goes running and Sally deals with the remaining resources. Even when disaster strikes (a flood), there’s no salvation: they still need to keep surviving, for as long as possible. No such thing as a happy ending here.

The novel breathes resignation, which is even reflected in the languid, melancholic writing style. Even so, the message is hard: how we failed to take up our collective responsibility to avoid climate disaster and how futile individual attempts are.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought Jessie Greengrass’s debut novel, Sight, was fantastic; complex but incredibly readable, weaving together the narrator’s musings on motherhood with the lives of three historical figures, Wilhelm Röntgen, Anna Freud and John Hunter, via the theme of inner sight. The High House, her second novel, is deliberately different. Greengrass still writes beautiful prose, but here it is much simpler, and focuses on description and action rather than the close anatomisation of inner worlds. It’s narrated by three people – Caro, Sally and Pauly – but their voices are the same, which again, I felt was a purposeful choice, as Greengrass certainly has the literary skill to differentiate her narrators if she so chooses. Finally, The High House is focused on a static period of time, a drawn-out experience of waiting for catastrophe to unfold, which starts to get to the reader in the same way as it does to the characters. No diving away from your own experience to think about the history of X rays or psychoanalysis in this novel; Greengrass keeps us all suspended in the high house.

All this is to say that I think, technically, Greengrass does exactly what she wanted to do, but I still couldn’t quite embrace this novel. It tells a familiar, if still horrifying, story of a handful of English survivors clinging on after devastating floods sweep much of the globe as a result of climate change. Their refuge was prepared in advance, so they have the resources to survive – for now. But because they were already anticipating disaster before it happened, their before and after is not that different. If the ‘after’ is worse, it’s because Pauly, who was a small child when the floods struck, is now an adult, and so Caro and Sally no longer have somebody to care for in the same way. This picks up on interesting questions about the future generation. Pauly’s mother, Francesca, was a climate activist and was killed by a storm even as she continued to predict Armageddon; she couldn’t enjoy sunny weather because she sees it as a harbinger of doom. And yet, she chose to give birth to Pauly, which Caro thinks was ‘an act of furious defiance… a kind of pact with the world that, having increased her stake in it, she should try to protect what she had found to love’.

But whether or not this was actually why Francesca had a child, it doesn’t sum up what Pauly comes to mean to Caro and Sally, and how bringing him up, putting his needs first, provides them with psychic defences against the horror they’re facing. Pauly, who is the only one of the trio who can’t remember the world as it used to be, also finds it easiest to adapt to their new reality. Greengrass raises a number of questions that don’t have answers: is it wrong to choose not to reproduce because you’re afraid of the future, because that means you’ve abandoned hope? On the other hand, is it wrong to create a child who has to live in this kind of world simply as a comfort for yourself? Or is this a disaster that humanity will ultimately live through, and the new generation are needed precisely because they’ll have the skills to do that? Nevertheless, the bleakness of this novel wore me down somewhat. It’s not as good as Jenny Offill’s Weather, which is similarly grim about future generations, but is also funny and bright and complicated. At times, The High House just feels like a warning, and I’m not sure anyone who reads this book will really need such a warning. 3.5 stars.

I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.