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Cold New Climate
The world is warming.
Lydia is unsettled in her New York life. She takes herself away to Greece, secure in the belief that her much-older partner Tom will be there on her return. However, when she comes back, she discovers he’s fallen in love with someone else. Her life now in disarray, Lydia faces a future in which nothing is secure. When she reconnects with Tom’s teenage son Caleb, all three lives are recast in shocking and devastating ways.
All the while we sense that in the world at large there are greater changes happening, changes over which they have even less control.
Isobel Wohl’s precise, brilliant, hyper-observant prose lays bare the ever-changing rules by which we try to conduct our lives, and in its astonishing conclusion, the novel asks us its most profound question: how do we want to live?
Lydia is unsettled in her New York life. She takes herself away to Greece, secure in the belief that her much-older partner Tom will be there on her return. However, when she comes back, she discovers he’s fallen in love with someone else. Her life now in disarray, Lydia faces a future in which nothing is secure. When she reconnects with Tom’s teenage son Caleb, all three lives are recast in shocking and devastating ways.
All the while we sense that in the world at large there are greater changes happening, changes over which they have even less control.
Isobel Wohl’s precise, brilliant, hyper-observant prose lays bare the ever-changing rules by which we try to conduct our lives, and in its astonishing conclusion, the novel asks us its most profound question: how do we want to live?
277 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
December 5, 2021
This is the first publication by Weatherglass Press – a new UK small press founded by two novelists – Neil Griffiths and Damian Lanigan. Neil Griffiths has perhaps done more than anyone over the last few years to support the UK small press scene with the foundation of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for those presses (now in its 5th year and an established part of the publishing scene). That prize has tended to champion both formally inventive fiction and translated fiction, and it is interesting therefore that Weatherglass Press has a deliberate focus away from these areas on “core literary fiction” – with Penelope Fitzgerald’s “Blue Flower” and “a shared fear it wouldn’t find a publisher today” at the heart of Weatherglass’s establishment and aim.
This book is a debut novel specifically commissioned by the press after Neil Griffiths had read the author (also a visual artist)’s short story collection “Winter Strangers”.
I would not want to say too much about the plot of the book than is already revealed in the blurb.
The book opens in Greece where Lydia is staying on an extended trip, a six-week break from her life in New York with her long term partner (although they are unmarried) Tom – a much older academic. Before she left she made it clear to Tom that on her return neither should ask the other if they had other sexual partners during the break. Lydia herself has an unsettling (for the reader as much as for her) one night stand with a man with an odd fetish (I think this may extend some of the themes in “Winter Strangers”) but on her return is shocked to find that Tom has gone much further and to his surprise fallen in love with a woman more his own age, leaving Lydia alone with her bitterness facing an uncertain future.
The other main protagonist is Tom’s teenage son, Lydia’s now ex-step-son Caleb – who we first meet with his psychiatrist, discussing his troubled past and on-going life struggles (suicide attempts, clinical depression, substance abuse, an inappropriate relationship with a woman who picked him up as a hitchhiker).
Lydia and Caleb share years of history, latent anger at Tom and sense of loss and it is perhaps inevitable that their lives drift into intersection with results which profoundly affect both their lives and that of Tom.
The prose of the book can at times be intense – due to a close third person point of view (moving between Lydia and – less frequently - Caleb) and the use of an immediate present tense. The affect is to bring our perspectives closer to that of Lydia in particular – even as we recoil from some of her actions and decisions. So at times it can be a shock to us as much as to Lydia to get a sense of how others – particularly Tom’s friends who she once knew well - increasingly come to view her and their perspective on her actions.
One of my favourite scenes is when a close friend of Lydia and Tom have an awkward dinner with Lydia and Caleb – trying to see how Caleb is doing and to talk to Lydia about her, to them, catastrophic choices. To their open disgust she largely ignores them and seems to lose all sense of perspective and immediacy by wanting to muse instead on catastrophic climate change tipping points.
But then the final section of the book makes us question the real meaning of catastrophe and what it really means to have perspective.
I joined a Webex this week (week of 1 March 2021) with Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro to mark the publication of his latest novel. There he said that, in his view, too much critical writing advice concentrates on how you keep a reader engaged as they read the book, whereas he is far more interested in how to stay in the mind of a reader long after they have finished the book (and so plans the ending of this book first and sacrifices something of the reading experience to achieve the required longevity.
What I can say about this book – immediately after reading it, is that I think the author may have achieved both an engaging reading experience and a residual impact. I read the novel in the course of one day – staying up past midnight to finish it, as the characters real, their dilemma compelling and the narrative arc arresting. But the unexpected and exceptional ending will I think linger with me long after I have forgotten most other books I read this year.
A great debut novel – both from the author and from the press – my congratulations to them all.
This book is a debut novel specifically commissioned by the press after Neil Griffiths had read the author (also a visual artist)’s short story collection “Winter Strangers”.
I would not want to say too much about the plot of the book than is already revealed in the blurb.
The book opens in Greece where Lydia is staying on an extended trip, a six-week break from her life in New York with her long term partner (although they are unmarried) Tom – a much older academic. Before she left she made it clear to Tom that on her return neither should ask the other if they had other sexual partners during the break. Lydia herself has an unsettling (for the reader as much as for her) one night stand with a man with an odd fetish (I think this may extend some of the themes in “Winter Strangers”) but on her return is shocked to find that Tom has gone much further and to his surprise fallen in love with a woman more his own age, leaving Lydia alone with her bitterness facing an uncertain future.
The other main protagonist is Tom’s teenage son, Lydia’s now ex-step-son Caleb – who we first meet with his psychiatrist, discussing his troubled past and on-going life struggles (suicide attempts, clinical depression, substance abuse, an inappropriate relationship with a woman who picked him up as a hitchhiker).
Lydia and Caleb share years of history, latent anger at Tom and sense of loss and it is perhaps inevitable that their lives drift into intersection with results which profoundly affect both their lives and that of Tom.
The prose of the book can at times be intense – due to a close third person point of view (moving between Lydia and – less frequently - Caleb) and the use of an immediate present tense. The affect is to bring our perspectives closer to that of Lydia in particular – even as we recoil from some of her actions and decisions. So at times it can be a shock to us as much as to Lydia to get a sense of how others – particularly Tom’s friends who she once knew well - increasingly come to view her and their perspective on her actions.
One of my favourite scenes is when a close friend of Lydia and Tom have an awkward dinner with Lydia and Caleb – trying to see how Caleb is doing and to talk to Lydia about her, to them, catastrophic choices. To their open disgust she largely ignores them and seems to lose all sense of perspective and immediacy by wanting to muse instead on catastrophic climate change tipping points.
But then the final section of the book makes us question the real meaning of catastrophe and what it really means to have perspective.
I joined a Webex this week (week of 1 March 2021) with Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro to mark the publication of his latest novel. There he said that, in his view, too much critical writing advice concentrates on how you keep a reader engaged as they read the book, whereas he is far more interested in how to stay in the mind of a reader long after they have finished the book (and so plans the ending of this book first and sacrifices something of the reading experience to achieve the required longevity.
What I can say about this book – immediately after reading it, is that I think the author may have achieved both an engaging reading experience and a residual impact. I read the novel in the course of one day – staying up past midnight to finish it, as the characters real, their dilemma compelling and the narrative arc arresting. But the unexpected and exceptional ending will I think linger with me long after I have forgotten most other books I read this year.
A great debut novel – both from the author and from the press – my congratulations to them all.
March 7, 2021
This is the first book from a new small publisher, Weatherglass Books, which was "founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today".
It is a difficult book to discuss without plot spoilers that go beyond the blurb description, so I will use spoiler tags where necessary. The book tells the stories of two main characters, Lydia and Caleb. At the start of the book Lydia (in her mid 30s) takes a break from her long-term partner Tom, an older academic, for a holiday alone in Greece. On her return she finds Tom a changed man, now in love with another woman and wanting to end their relationship. Caleb is Tom's son from his earlier marriage, and his mother is long dead. He is now a young adult with a history of mental problems and addictions. The story proper begins with Lydia meeting him by chance .
All of this takes place against the backdrop of climate change. At first this theme seems incidental, but it crops up throughout the story largely in apparently throw-away conversations that reveal the attitudes of the characters.
The book is powerfully written - the third person narrator follows Lydia most of the time but there are sections written more from Caleb's perspective. The language is propulsive and the story is always readable and engrossing. A promising debut novel and a fine start for Weatherglass.
It is a difficult book to discuss without plot spoilers that go beyond the blurb description, so I will use spoiler tags where necessary. The book tells the stories of two main characters, Lydia and Caleb. At the start of the book Lydia (in her mid 30s) takes a break from her long-term partner Tom, an older academic, for a holiday alone in Greece. On her return she finds Tom a changed man, now in love with another woman and wanting to end their relationship. Caleb is Tom's son from his earlier marriage, and his mother is long dead. He is now a young adult with a history of mental problems and addictions. The story proper begins with Lydia meeting him by chance .
All of this takes place against the backdrop of climate change. At first this theme seems incidental, but it crops up throughout the story largely in apparently throw-away conversations that reveal the attitudes of the characters.
The book is powerfully written - the third person narrator follows Lydia most of the time but there are sections written more from Caleb's perspective. The language is propulsive and the story is always readable and engrossing. A promising debut novel and a fine start for Weatherglass.
March 6, 2021
The bodies of the anchovies are silver-white on the back. When they were cleaned they were sliced open along the long tapered belly and there is a groove where the spine was. Lydia likes the salt and the lines in the white flesh pattern. The sun sets. When the striations of color are close to fading Lydia walks back up the road to the town, past kittens, who follow her for a few minutes before giving up and lying down by the roadside.
Weatherglass Press is a new literary press, as the founders explain:
I signed up as a Founder Reader for the press, but in a sense I’m not really their target market - my reading of choice is actually translated, formally inventive fiction, rather than core literary fiction (the Booker Prize isn’t really my thing) and I have to also admit The Blue Flower is my least favourite of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels.
This Twitter thread - https://twitter.com/WeatherglassBks/s...- includes other “books we would have published in a heartbeat”, and the one that most overlaps with my taste is an Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one), based on my experience of her final novel Burning: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
My review of Burning concludes “Taylor creates a compelling study of relationships, bereavement, grief, guilt and (self-)blame ... The prose is noticeable for its deliberately understated quality, with a focus on emotions repressed and implicit,” and many of those same qualities are inherent in this the Press’s first novel, one they essentially commissioned:
My twin Graham (aka Gumble’s Yard)’s review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - expresses the novel’s strengths well. It isn’t formally inventive or translated (indeed I felt a needed a translator for some of the Americanisms) but it is, as intended, a piece of quality core literary fiction.
4 stars.
Weatherglass Press is a new literary press, as the founders explain:
Weatherglass Books is a new small press founded by Neil Griffiths (novelist and founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses) and Damian Lanigan (novelist and playwright). It was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today.
For the last five years or so small presses have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting in UK publishing and with much success. But they tend to focus on either formally inventive fiction or translations. The space for core literary fiction has been squeezed and books which are merely excellent can find themselves homeless.
I signed up as a Founder Reader for the press, but in a sense I’m not really their target market - my reading of choice is actually translated, formally inventive fiction, rather than core literary fiction (the Booker Prize isn’t really my thing) and I have to also admit The Blue Flower is my least favourite of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels.
This Twitter thread - https://twitter.com/WeatherglassBks/s...- includes other “books we would have published in a heartbeat”, and the one that most overlaps with my taste is an Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one), based on my experience of her final novel Burning: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
My review of Burning concludes “Taylor creates a compelling study of relationships, bereavement, grief, guilt and (self-)blame ... The prose is noticeable for its deliberately understated quality, with a focus on emotions repressed and implicit,” and many of those same qualities are inherent in this the Press’s first novel, one they essentially commissioned:
Cold New Climate by Isobel Wohl is our first novel, scheduled for April 2021. Isobel is originally from Brooklyn but studied as a visual artist in London. Neil found some short stories she'd written and thought she had the makings of a very fine novelist. We asked her to consider writing a book and we were pretty much stunned when it came back to us. We'd rarely read a debut of such assuredness and brilliance. You can tell she's an artist: some of the observations have a Van Eyck-ian attention to detail. But she also has a fantastic ear for dialogue, a subtle and compassionate sense of character and a salutary seriousness of purpose. The end of the book is an absolute artistic coup. We could not be prouder that this is our debut novel.
My twin Graham (aka Gumble’s Yard)’s review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - expresses the novel’s strengths well. It isn’t formally inventive or translated (indeed I felt a needed a translator for some of the Americanisms) but it is, as intended, a piece of quality core literary fiction.
4 stars.
August 1, 2021
Transgressive Love in a Cold New Climate*
Review of the Weatherglass Books paperback edition (April 2021)
I'll confess that I started Cold New Climate back in April 2021 when I received it as the Book of the Month from my Republic of Consciousness subscription. I did however put it aside then after only a few dozen pages. The reason at the time was that I wasn't enjoying the protagonist character Lydia who had asked to take a break from her older partner Tom to go off to Greece in what seemed like a completely selfish and self-centred way. To her regretful later horror, she has a one-night stand with an emetophiliac (no, I'm not going to link or help to define that, you'll just have to look it up. Warning, it will be to your regret). It seemed as if the author didn't like the character either and was punishing her right off the bat. Anyway, I decided I wasn't interested in continuing.
But, a few months later, I looked again at my TBR pile and the cover blurb "A miracle in book form" from author Toby Litt (whose Patience (2019) I had really enjoyed ) made me take a second look. I ended up being totally absorbed by it and caught up in Lydia's (35ish years of age?)and Caleb's (19-years of age) liaison, relationship, and later life. The book makes a rather startling late leap (mild spoiler) , this jump also pays off the hints of cli-fi and environmental issues from earlier in the book.
This book is the 1st publication by the new publisher Weatherglass Books, and their future list looks intriguing as well. Interestingly, the novel was a commission based on the reading of the author's only other book, a slim set of short stories Winter Strangers (2019) which I ordered immediately. What a payoff and kickoff for this new publishing venture!
I read Cold New Climate as the March 2021 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Other Reviews
Right in the grey area by Lamorna Ash, Times Literary Supplement, June 11, 2021.
A Confident Pleasurable Debut by Lara Feigel, The Guardian, April 29, 2021.
Lose Your Delusions by David Collard, Literary Review, June 2021.
Trivia and Links
Q&A with Isobel Wohl at Writers Rebel, April 1, 2021.
An Interview with Isobel Wohl at the Weatherglass Books Blog, April 16, 2021.
*It was low hanging fruit, so I couldn't resist riffing on the title of Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate (1949) for my lede.
Review of the Weatherglass Books paperback edition (April 2021)
I'll confess that I started Cold New Climate back in April 2021 when I received it as the Book of the Month from my Republic of Consciousness subscription. I did however put it aside then after only a few dozen pages. The reason at the time was that I wasn't enjoying the protagonist character Lydia who had asked to take a break from her older partner Tom to go off to Greece in what seemed like a completely selfish and self-centred way. To her regretful later horror, she has a one-night stand with an emetophiliac (no, I'm not going to link or help to define that, you'll just have to look it up. Warning, it will be to your regret). It seemed as if the author didn't like the character either and was punishing her right off the bat. Anyway, I decided I wasn't interested in continuing.
But, a few months later, I looked again at my TBR pile and the cover blurb "A miracle in book form" from author Toby Litt (whose Patience (2019) I had really enjoyed ) made me take a second look. I ended up being totally absorbed by it and caught up in Lydia's (35ish years of age?)and Caleb's (19-years of age) liaison, relationship, and later life. The book makes a rather startling late leap (mild spoiler) , this jump also pays off the hints of cli-fi and environmental issues from earlier in the book.
This book is the 1st publication by the new publisher Weatherglass Books, and their future list looks intriguing as well. Interestingly, the novel was a commission based on the reading of the author's only other book, a slim set of short stories Winter Strangers (2019) which I ordered immediately. What a payoff and kickoff for this new publishing venture!
I read Cold New Climate as the March 2021 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Other Reviews
Right in the grey area by Lamorna Ash, Times Literary Supplement, June 11, 2021.
A Confident Pleasurable Debut by Lara Feigel, The Guardian, April 29, 2021.
Lose Your Delusions by David Collard, Literary Review, June 2021.
Trivia and Links
Q&A with Isobel Wohl at Writers Rebel, April 1, 2021.
An Interview with Isobel Wohl at the Weatherglass Books Blog, April 16, 2021.
*It was low hanging fruit, so I couldn't resist riffing on the title of Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate (1949) for my lede.
March 13, 2021
The first book published by the new Weatherglass Books and a book commissioned by that press specifically to be their first book. So, it is worth noting what Weatherglass Books is all about when considering at least some of the elements of whether this book is successful.
”Weatherglass Books is a new small press founded by Neil Griffiths (novelist and founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses) and Damian Lanigan (novelist and playwright). It was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today.
For the last five years or so small presses have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting in UK publishing and with much success. But they tend to focus on either formally inventive fiction or translations. The space for core literary fiction has been squeezed and books which are merely excellent can find themselves homeless.
Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower.”
(I don’t think this description means we have to compare Cold New Climate to The Blue Flower, by the way).
I think it is fair to say that Weatherglass has achieved its ambitions. I thought this was an excellent book of “core literary fiction”.
You can read in the blurb a bit of what the book is about and I think, unlike with some books I’ve read, the blurb has been written carefully to give the potential reader a flavour without spoiling the book. It doesn’t feel appropriate to say anything more about the plot.
Then, of course, there’s the title. And the blurb’s mention of a world in flux, changing beyond the control of individual human beings. There are hints of this throughout the book, hints of climate change and politics. A lot of this is done very subtly and carefully. For example, during a scene in a kitchen someone brushes stuff down the plughole where it makes its way out into “some ocean”. This simultaneously raises issues of environmental concern whilst showing individual apathy. I thought a lot of these references were very cleverly handled.
The book is very good at throwing in these small references to a much larger topic. It’s set in America and the Trump administration gets the same kind of treatment. The book also contains a number of arresting vignettes that aren’t necessarily key to the story but which contribute to the book’s quality. My favourite of these, I think, was the man who dances up the stairs at a train station bringing the two main protagonists, and the narrative, to a temporary halt. That was rather lovely, I thought.
The main protagonist is Lydia and we spent most time in a close third person narrative focused on Lydia. She is a difficult person to like. We spend less time with Caleb as the focus but I have to say that I felt I got to know Caleb almost better than I did Lydia. You have to read between the lines a bit because Caleb isn’t so well explored directly on the page, but the things he says and the way Lydia describes his reactions I think makes him a very three-dimensional character.
The final section of the book is very different to the rest. I found it very effective, but I’m not saying anything about it here because, really, you should read this book for yourself and find out that way. I often struggle to remember the ends of books, but I have the feeling the end of this one will stay with me.
An excellent debut both for novelist and publisher.
”Weatherglass Books is a new small press founded by Neil Griffiths (novelist and founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses) and Damian Lanigan (novelist and playwright). It was founded on a shared love of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower and a shared fear that it wouldn’t find a publisher today.
For the last five years or so small presses have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting in UK publishing and with much success. But they tend to focus on either formally inventive fiction or translations. The space for core literary fiction has been squeezed and books which are merely excellent can find themselves homeless.
Weatherglass Books wants to clear a space for the next The Blue Flower.”
(I don’t think this description means we have to compare Cold New Climate to The Blue Flower, by the way).
I think it is fair to say that Weatherglass has achieved its ambitions. I thought this was an excellent book of “core literary fiction”.
You can read in the blurb a bit of what the book is about and I think, unlike with some books I’ve read, the blurb has been written carefully to give the potential reader a flavour without spoiling the book. It doesn’t feel appropriate to say anything more about the plot.
Then, of course, there’s the title. And the blurb’s mention of a world in flux, changing beyond the control of individual human beings. There are hints of this throughout the book, hints of climate change and politics. A lot of this is done very subtly and carefully. For example, during a scene in a kitchen someone brushes stuff down the plughole where it makes its way out into “some ocean”. This simultaneously raises issues of environmental concern whilst showing individual apathy. I thought a lot of these references were very cleverly handled.
The book is very good at throwing in these small references to a much larger topic. It’s set in America and the Trump administration gets the same kind of treatment. The book also contains a number of arresting vignettes that aren’t necessarily key to the story but which contribute to the book’s quality. My favourite of these, I think, was the man who dances up the stairs at a train station bringing the two main protagonists, and the narrative, to a temporary halt. That was rather lovely, I thought.
The main protagonist is Lydia and we spent most time in a close third person narrative focused on Lydia. She is a difficult person to like. We spend less time with Caleb as the focus but I have to say that I felt I got to know Caleb almost better than I did Lydia. You have to read between the lines a bit because Caleb isn’t so well explored directly on the page, but the things he says and the way Lydia describes his reactions I think makes him a very three-dimensional character.
The final section of the book is very different to the rest. I found it very effective, but I’m not saying anything about it here because, really, you should read this book for yourself and find out that way. I often struggle to remember the ends of books, but I have the feeling the end of this one will stay with me.
An excellent debut both for novelist and publisher.
March 8, 2021
Cold New Climate is the first novel from new indie press Weatherglass Books, for which I am a Founding Reader.
It begins with Lydia telling her longtime partner, Tom, that she needs some space to think about what she wants regarding their relationship and so is going to Greece for a month, she further informs him that she does not wish to communicate with him while she is there and does not want to be asked about anything she might do while there. She comes home to generously tell Tom that she has decided that she does love him and that she wants to stay with him and his teenage son Caleb, for whom Lydia has been in essence a step-mother since Caleb was 4 or 5 years old, only to discover that Tom had made other plans, something Lydia hadn’t considered. She thought her desires were the fulcrum for this relationship and, as we discover, this self-centered attitude extends much, much farther than this relationship.
Lydia was a great character, she was the train wreck we find ourselves staring at, knowing we should look away, but being unable to. Tom and Caleb are central characters as well, Caleb having a history of serious mental health issues and Tom being a devoted father.
The story started a bit slow for me until Lydia runs into Caleb one evening, at that point I couldn’t put the book down and read it in one sitting.
This is very much a character driven novel with parallels to climate change. We didn’t have as much of Tom’s or Caleb’s inner thoughts as Lydia’s, but the story was primarily about Lydia, her unraveling, her pathological self-centeredness, and her inability or refusal to see that she has no control over others, a lesson she never learns, even after it’s too late and she’s suffered her greatest loss. Lydia destroys her relationships, her career, her reputation, and those she most loves, thinking that she has the power, and is entitled, to use other people to her selfish advantage...this is the parallel to climate change.
We, humans writ large, refuse to see how our self-interested actions are destroying our precious natural resources, even though we have all seen the shrinking of the ice shelves, the polluting of our oceans, and have been warned species are going extinct, species we don’t often know about, but also the large mammals like polar bears, we still we think our petty needs outweigh those of saving the planet. We are seeing the signs of our peril, but we ignore them, still thinking we are the center of the universe and entitled to whatever we want regardless of the harm we do; we refuse to make enough changes to save what is left to be saved. We believe we can subvert nature to our ends and in spite of all the evidence, refuse to see that we are the agents of our own destruction.
Human beings are Lydia, the planet is Tom, our natural resources are Caleb who Lydia can see is suffering and unable to save himself from her. Lydia knows that Caleb’s suffering is taking a toll on Tom, yet Lydia continues to shock us with her disastrous and cruel decisions.
As Hugh said, this is a promising first novel from Weatherglass Books, an independent press whose stated goal is not to publish the experimental, translated, or avant-garde books we usually expect from small publishers, but rather to publish character driven, plot driven novels of high literary quality-intelligent, engaging stories with exceptional writing.
The team behind Weatherglass Books also run the Republic of Consciousness (RofC) Prize and the RofC book club who consistently select very good books from various indie presses for their subscribers: they know a good novel when they read one, so I will continue to support Weatherglass Books.
It begins with Lydia telling her longtime partner, Tom, that she needs some space to think about what she wants regarding their relationship and so is going to Greece for a month, she further informs him that she does not wish to communicate with him while she is there and does not want to be asked about anything she might do while there. She comes home to generously tell Tom that she has decided that she does love him and that she wants to stay with him and his teenage son Caleb, for whom Lydia has been in essence a step-mother since Caleb was 4 or 5 years old, only to discover that Tom had made other plans, something Lydia hadn’t considered. She thought her desires were the fulcrum for this relationship and, as we discover, this self-centered attitude extends much, much farther than this relationship.
Lydia was a great character, she was the train wreck we find ourselves staring at, knowing we should look away, but being unable to. Tom and Caleb are central characters as well, Caleb having a history of serious mental health issues and Tom being a devoted father.
The story started a bit slow for me until Lydia runs into Caleb one evening, at that point I couldn’t put the book down and read it in one sitting.
This is very much a character driven novel with parallels to climate change. We didn’t have as much of Tom’s or Caleb’s inner thoughts as Lydia’s, but the story was primarily about Lydia, her unraveling, her pathological self-centeredness, and her inability or refusal to see that she has no control over others, a lesson she never learns, even after it’s too late and she’s suffered her greatest loss. Lydia destroys her relationships, her career, her reputation, and those she most loves, thinking that she has the power, and is entitled, to use other people to her selfish advantage...this is the parallel to climate change.
We, humans writ large, refuse to see how our self-interested actions are destroying our precious natural resources, even though we have all seen the shrinking of the ice shelves, the polluting of our oceans, and have been warned species are going extinct, species we don’t often know about, but also the large mammals like polar bears, we still we think our petty needs outweigh those of saving the planet. We are seeing the signs of our peril, but we ignore them, still thinking we are the center of the universe and entitled to whatever we want regardless of the harm we do; we refuse to make enough changes to save what is left to be saved. We believe we can subvert nature to our ends and in spite of all the evidence, refuse to see that we are the agents of our own destruction.
Human beings are Lydia, the planet is Tom, our natural resources are Caleb who Lydia can see is suffering and unable to save himself from her. Lydia knows that Caleb’s suffering is taking a toll on Tom, yet Lydia continues to shock us with her disastrous and cruel decisions.
As Hugh said, this is a promising first novel from Weatherglass Books, an independent press whose stated goal is not to publish the experimental, translated, or avant-garde books we usually expect from small publishers, but rather to publish character driven, plot driven novels of high literary quality-intelligent, engaging stories with exceptional writing.
The team behind Weatherglass Books also run the Republic of Consciousness (RofC) Prize and the RofC book club who consistently select very good books from various indie presses for their subscribers: they know a good novel when they read one, so I will continue to support Weatherglass Books.
March 13, 2021
This review contains spoilers.
Cold New Climate is a debut in two ways. First of all it is Isobel Wohl’s first novel and secondly it is the first book from brand new press Weatherglass Books. Exciting indeed.
Lydia goes to Greece as a break from her long term partner Tom. When she returns refreshed and ready to stay with him, she finds out that he has started to date someone else. Lydia then has to leave Tom’s flat. Then follows a series of actions which include Lydia eventually dating Tom’s son Caleb, who suffers from depression and has been hospitalized for it.
Despite the obstacles of this realtionship, mainly from Caleb’s father, Tom, Lydia’s partnership with Caleb helps him face the world and both benefit. The book does go into the complexities of a relationship not only, between, an older woman and a young adult but also the psychological affects on all three individuals. Unlike most books I’ve read about intricate relations, Isobel Wohl goes even further and presents Caleb and Lydia’s future as a couple.
Isobel Wohl’s writing is cinematic. I could picture every single action clearly. Each sentence is delicate, crystalline and precise. Yet, there are disturbing moments. Think of a dew encrusted spider’s web. In the middle of this perfection there’s a fly struggling and slightly causing things to go awry. All characters are relatable and realistic, with their flaws and good points. Not to mention some memorable scenes and surprises.
To believe that a novel this accomplished is a debut. If Cold New Climate are first steps, I cannot wait to see what the future brings.
Cold New Climate is a debut in two ways. First of all it is Isobel Wohl’s first novel and secondly it is the first book from brand new press Weatherglass Books. Exciting indeed.
Lydia goes to Greece as a break from her long term partner Tom. When she returns refreshed and ready to stay with him, she finds out that he has started to date someone else. Lydia then has to leave Tom’s flat. Then follows a series of actions which include Lydia eventually dating Tom’s son Caleb, who suffers from depression and has been hospitalized for it.
Despite the obstacles of this realtionship, mainly from Caleb’s father, Tom, Lydia’s partnership with Caleb helps him face the world and both benefit. The book does go into the complexities of a relationship not only, between, an older woman and a young adult but also the psychological affects on all three individuals. Unlike most books I’ve read about intricate relations, Isobel Wohl goes even further and presents Caleb and Lydia’s future as a couple.
Isobel Wohl’s writing is cinematic. I could picture every single action clearly. Each sentence is delicate, crystalline and precise. Yet, there are disturbing moments. Think of a dew encrusted spider’s web. In the middle of this perfection there’s a fly struggling and slightly causing things to go awry. All characters are relatable and realistic, with their flaws and good points. Not to mention some memorable scenes and surprises.
To believe that a novel this accomplished is a debut. If Cold New Climate are first steps, I cannot wait to see what the future brings.
May 3, 2021
I am choosing to read this novel as an allegory.
We meet Lydia, the primary protagonist in Isobel Wohl's debut novel, discussing wind turbines during her sojourn in Greece. What appears to be an idle conversation about whether or not the turbines ruin the view of the Grecian hillside (both participants broadly feel they don't) highlights a theme that Wohl continues to touch upon throughout the novel: climate change.
In practically every occurrence of this theme, we find Lydia raising and paying lip-service to the issue - usually as a topic of conversation awkwardly shoehorned in. The California wildfires is almost inevitably the example offered. It is prevalent enough to be noticeable but not enough to be pivotal to the actual plot of Cold New Climate. This is why my reading of the novel sees it is an allegory.
Without giving too much away - this novel is about a relationship that is so devastating in its effects, so detrimental to the lives of the characters, and so clearly and obviously wrong that it is utterly unfathomable that it is allowed to continue. And yet continue it does as, much like the wildfires, it ravages its way through homes, lives and characters, leaving destruction in its wake.
The participants in the relationship demonstrate an unwillingness to really face the issue straight on - either through introspection or dialogue with other characters. These other characters, demonstrating reactions from outrage to disinterested disapproval, have neither the means nor the will to affect any change themselves.
And so the disaster continues unabated.
Regardless of whether this allegory was Wohl's intention, it is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that, to me, was somewhat reminiscent of Sally Rooney's 'Conversations with Friends'. The plotting is surprisingly fast-paced, and the characters are enthralling, albeit absolutely confounding in their actions. It's a fantastic first outing from an author who I'll be keen to read more from.
We meet Lydia, the primary protagonist in Isobel Wohl's debut novel, discussing wind turbines during her sojourn in Greece. What appears to be an idle conversation about whether or not the turbines ruin the view of the Grecian hillside (both participants broadly feel they don't) highlights a theme that Wohl continues to touch upon throughout the novel: climate change.
In practically every occurrence of this theme, we find Lydia raising and paying lip-service to the issue - usually as a topic of conversation awkwardly shoehorned in. The California wildfires is almost inevitably the example offered. It is prevalent enough to be noticeable but not enough to be pivotal to the actual plot of Cold New Climate. This is why my reading of the novel sees it is an allegory.
Without giving too much away - this novel is about a relationship that is so devastating in its effects, so detrimental to the lives of the characters, and so clearly and obviously wrong that it is utterly unfathomable that it is allowed to continue. And yet continue it does as, much like the wildfires, it ravages its way through homes, lives and characters, leaving destruction in its wake.
The participants in the relationship demonstrate an unwillingness to really face the issue straight on - either through introspection or dialogue with other characters. These other characters, demonstrating reactions from outrage to disinterested disapproval, have neither the means nor the will to affect any change themselves.
And so the disaster continues unabated.
Regardless of whether this allegory was Wohl's intention, it is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that, to me, was somewhat reminiscent of Sally Rooney's 'Conversations with Friends'. The plotting is surprisingly fast-paced, and the characters are enthralling, albeit absolutely confounding in their actions. It's a fantastic first outing from an author who I'll be keen to read more from.
June 10, 2021
Who knew this book would be about a stepmother and her stepson having an incestuous, absolutely bonkers relationship and who knew I would enjoy it! could not put this book down - hated the main character with a real passion but couldn’t stop reading
August 6, 2024
I mean, I don't normally read a book in 24 hours, so there's that. but I was nearly hate-reading it at some point - pain-reading it, i mean, seeking for relief.
not sure what else to say. some really beautiful moments alongside many excruciating ones, imo, particularly when I picked it up impatient in my own life. I think I found the last third the most difficult and the first half the most joyful to read. I like the ending, which I want to mention after reading that some others don't.
agreed, climate change barreling on despite its unbearable consequences parallels this relationship.
truly, I do want to give Wohl credit for the beautiful clarity and intricacy of the relieving snapshots she shares with us alongside the cruelty of misaligned order.
not sure what else to say. some really beautiful moments alongside many excruciating ones, imo, particularly when I picked it up impatient in my own life. I think I found the last third the most difficult and the first half the most joyful to read. I like the ending, which I want to mention after reading that some others don't.
agreed, climate change barreling on despite its unbearable consequences parallels this relationship.
truly, I do want to give Wohl credit for the beautiful clarity and intricacy of the relieving snapshots she shares with us alongside the cruelty of misaligned order.
October 22, 2025
Here you have it: a five star book that I would feel embarrassed recommending to any of my friends.
I recently went to London, and a large part of that trip was treating myself to books not released in the U.S., and ‘Cold New Climate’ was one of them.
I challenge anyone who says “I support women’s rights and wrongs” to read this book. Part of the reason I want to rate this book 5 stars is because it fucking GOES there. Impossible to put down or look away from, but also freaky in a genuine sense. Like it makes the narrator from ‘All Fours’ look like Ms. Rachel.
I recently went to London, and a large part of that trip was treating myself to books not released in the U.S., and ‘Cold New Climate’ was one of them.
I challenge anyone who says “I support women’s rights and wrongs” to read this book. Part of the reason I want to rate this book 5 stars is because it fucking GOES there. Impossible to put down or look away from, but also freaky in a genuine sense. Like it makes the narrator from ‘All Fours’ look like Ms. Rachel.
April 13, 2021
Magnificently written, pared back prose makes for an uncomfortable visit with Lydia, Tom and Caleb. I found myself gasping on several occasions and sincerely hoping I never bumped into some of these people irl - ok definitely not one of these people irl!
Part 3 was a little awkward and stopped me from giving it a full five stars so this is a four and a half star review - which is still mighty fine for a first novel from both publishers and author.
Part 3 was a little awkward and stopped me from giving it a full five stars so this is a four and a half star review - which is still mighty fine for a first novel from both publishers and author.
July 28, 2021
An incredible story and compelling writing from a debut author and new publisher. However, much like the other reviews mention, the ending was disconnected from the rest of the story and felt like it belonged to a different book.
Read
June 2, 2022Bizarre ending
August 15, 2021
(3.5 stars)
Read
July 17, 2025Can’t even rate this, I have no idea if I loved it or hated it but I’m glad I read it.
December 10, 2025
I think I hated this but it’s hard to say. Against the odds I did finish it, but I mainly just feel relieved it’s done. I recommend if you like weird hard to read pretty fucked up stories, but with really great writing.
May 8, 2021
This superb novel is the first to be published by Wohl - and I for one am already eagerly awaiting another.
I need it.
While covid caused distractions dominated my life for the last 14 months, I lost my ability to revel in good writing.
Cold New Climate reminds me of how much joy there is in reading great work - and I can't wait to see more from the talented Ms Wohl!
A fantastic debut.
I need it.
While covid caused distractions dominated my life for the last 14 months, I lost my ability to revel in good writing.
Cold New Climate reminds me of how much joy there is in reading great work - and I can't wait to see more from the talented Ms Wohl!
A fantastic debut.
November 18, 2021
I can’t believe this book! It captures the whole spectrum of human emotion so brilliantly, and is full of the kind of shock twists I’d usually associate with far less subtle books. It is dark and quietly moving, dwelling in the characters’ moments of insecurity and weakness and panning out beautifully to reveal the wake of their destruction. The depictions of sexuality and depression will stick with me, but so will the minute and elaborate attention Wohl pays to the fleeting moments: anchovies on a plate, somebody sniffing flowers, a moment of hesitation or a line of smudged eyeliner. The scenes in which Lydia breaks down, at the beginning and end of the novel, were particularly moving to read. Her identity and her femininity seem to hang so tentatively on the impressions and moods of others, and through Lydia Wohl presents us with some of our worst character flaws rendered huge. I love Wohl’s ability to capture the inconsistencies of human interactions and behaviours in such cinematic detail. I am stunned by her talent for flitting in and out of problems that pertain to one tiny moment and resting upon problems that pertain to the entire world, forever.
‘she twitches and flushes with awareness of his attention. Jane has been glorious and awkward and blind to her own shivering want’
‘Lydia wriggles her nose into the flesh of his armpit and muffles her laughter with his skin’
‘When he leaves her loneliness is new and delicious, nothing like the loneliness she felt before. When she is supposed to be working she pauses frequently to recollect his mouth and fingers’
‘The bodies of the anchovies are silver-white in the back. When they were cleaned they were sliced open along the long tapered belly and there is a groove where the spine was. Lydia likes the salt and the lines in the white flesh pattern’
‘a painting of globular and emotional peaches encircled by a blue mark meant to indicate, expressively, a bowl’
‘In the new world air is painful and Tom has fallen in love’
‘But no guests in the hotel have Tom’s face, which is against Tom’s pillow, sleeping soundly near another face or perhaps not yet. Perhaps she’s not there. Arm wrapped around’
‘In the mirror Lydia puts brown eyeliner on the eyelids of a devastated woman’
‘Tom opening the door for her, Tom closing the door, Tom in the shower in the mornings, their days together once pallid and lacklustre and in her mind now enervated’
‘He did not tell them about the pills at the parties either, because they looked just like the pills he was supposed to take’
‘feels sick the closer he gets to the place where Ellen’s body might not yet have been noticed by anyone’
‘he hates the honest slow body of grief’
‘When did it start? In a hallway, with orange lilies?’
‘Hello, do I hallucinate points of light on the hands of strange women, bright punctures. Hello, did I hallucinate years of companionship and pillow spittle tolerance’
‘an actual real couple with two lives that make a shared one over dinners, breakfasts, illnesses, anniversaries, arguments’
‘She was furious that he was sitting there, attentive and dependent and blameless and unavoidable’
‘It was not for him to get himself set on fire or choked or inflamed by his own body or whatever had happened and so to never see her again’
‘He still felt nothing for the city but it seemed to have room for his sadness’
‘At night he killed his father with Lydia. In a picture a plush tiger killed his father’
‘It happened all at once, and there was more left to happen’
‘she twitches and flushes with awareness of his attention. Jane has been glorious and awkward and blind to her own shivering want’
‘Lydia wriggles her nose into the flesh of his armpit and muffles her laughter with his skin’
‘When he leaves her loneliness is new and delicious, nothing like the loneliness she felt before. When she is supposed to be working she pauses frequently to recollect his mouth and fingers’
‘The bodies of the anchovies are silver-white in the back. When they were cleaned they were sliced open along the long tapered belly and there is a groove where the spine was. Lydia likes the salt and the lines in the white flesh pattern’
‘a painting of globular and emotional peaches encircled by a blue mark meant to indicate, expressively, a bowl’
‘In the new world air is painful and Tom has fallen in love’
‘But no guests in the hotel have Tom’s face, which is against Tom’s pillow, sleeping soundly near another face or perhaps not yet. Perhaps she’s not there. Arm wrapped around’
‘In the mirror Lydia puts brown eyeliner on the eyelids of a devastated woman’
‘Tom opening the door for her, Tom closing the door, Tom in the shower in the mornings, their days together once pallid and lacklustre and in her mind now enervated’
‘He did not tell them about the pills at the parties either, because they looked just like the pills he was supposed to take’
‘feels sick the closer he gets to the place where Ellen’s body might not yet have been noticed by anyone’
‘he hates the honest slow body of grief’
‘When did it start? In a hallway, with orange lilies?’
‘Hello, do I hallucinate points of light on the hands of strange women, bright punctures. Hello, did I hallucinate years of companionship and pillow spittle tolerance’
‘an actual real couple with two lives that make a shared one over dinners, breakfasts, illnesses, anniversaries, arguments’
‘She was furious that he was sitting there, attentive and dependent and blameless and unavoidable’
‘It was not for him to get himself set on fire or choked or inflamed by his own body or whatever had happened and so to never see her again’
‘He still felt nothing for the city but it seemed to have room for his sadness’
‘At night he killed his father with Lydia. In a picture a plush tiger killed his father’
‘It happened all at once, and there was more left to happen’
March 8, 2022
Lydia is such an unlikeable protagonist - manipulative, selfish, no redeeming features. The book itself is actually pretty depressing in many ways. Despite this, I enjoyed it. The prose style is quite pacy and there is a lot of 'tell' over 'show' here, which gave it a feeling of being distanced from the narrative. I'm making it sound awful, but I've given it four stars, one of the quality of the paper it's printed on! The others for presenting such a complex and strange character in such an interesting way. And she gets her comeuppance. She mirrors the destruction around her.
February 24, 2022
I was really enjoying this, was a definite four stars, then the last few pages left me wondering what just happened.
September 16, 2022
As many before me have already summarised the plot of this book, I won't repeat that bit and jump right to my thoughts about it.
I don't agree with other readers who compare the relationship between Lydia and Caleb to humankind's destruction of the environment at all.
Rather the opposite: in an environment where there's nothing to hold on to and everything is collapsing, what is thought to be wrong could be the main ressource of stability.
When I started reading Cold New Climate I utterly underestimated it, wondering if it was a bit of a Sex and the City for Generation Z-types. But it soon grew out of this vibe.
Isobel Wohl composed two main characters who were shaped by the losses and their own struggles with the world and themselves to be drawn to each other by each coincidentally suffering another loss at a similar time. For the first 2/3s of the book each of their personalities and psychological issues tie them together in a way that seems /is highly unhealthy. However, in a world of Harvey Weinsteins, high expectations of social functionality, environmental crisis and the decline of the ordered world, this fround upon relationship turns out to be a very stable construct to carry the two through decades. And just at a point where Caleb seems more stable and might be denied a life with a loving relationship in a romantic way, Wohl offers him exactly that and opens the door to a new life he could not have had at an earlier stage, a beautiful, kind, bitter-sweet ending for her first novel.
The only criticism I have is that it felt inconsistent to me how Caleb's mental health and medical needs seem to become irrelevant / inconsequential / undetectable from a stage of the plot where I would have expected them to be far more consequential and leaves gaps that can either be filled in a well-meaning way or raise the question how much of it was used for dramatic effect than with actual interest for the lifelong consequences of depression and addiction.
I don't agree with other readers who compare the relationship between Lydia and Caleb to humankind's destruction of the environment at all.
Rather the opposite: in an environment where there's nothing to hold on to and everything is collapsing, what is thought to be wrong could be the main ressource of stability.
When I started reading Cold New Climate I utterly underestimated it, wondering if it was a bit of a Sex and the City for Generation Z-types. But it soon grew out of this vibe.
Isobel Wohl composed two main characters who were shaped by the losses and their own struggles with the world and themselves to be drawn to each other by each coincidentally suffering another loss at a similar time. For the first 2/3s of the book each of their personalities and psychological issues tie them together in a way that seems /is highly unhealthy. However, in a world of Harvey Weinsteins, high expectations of social functionality, environmental crisis and the decline of the ordered world, this fround upon relationship turns out to be a very stable construct to carry the two through decades. And just at a point where Caleb seems more stable and might be denied a life with a loving relationship in a romantic way, Wohl offers him exactly that and opens the door to a new life he could not have had at an earlier stage, a beautiful, kind, bitter-sweet ending for her first novel.
The only criticism I have is that it felt inconsistent to me how Caleb's mental health and medical needs seem to become irrelevant / inconsequential / undetectable from a stage of the plot where I would have expected them to be far more consequential and leaves gaps that can either be filled in a well-meaning way or raise the question how much of it was used for dramatic effect than with actual interest for the lifelong consequences of depression and addiction.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 12, 2023
4 stars for part one and two, 3 stars for the ending/part three
Cold New Climate was a wild ride. I read the first half at a fairly normal pace, took a break for a few days, and then sped through the second half in 24 hours. It was a positively compulsive read once we hit the point of no return – but kind of in the way you can’t stop looking at a train wreck. I kept turning the pages in incredulous disbelief at the choices of the two main characters, but especially Lydia, who seems by the end of part two to have lost all sense of reality.
And then, quite in the middle of what seems like a breakdown in the making, we get to part three (which is only the last 15 or so pages of the book) and everything the story has built so far – the relationship between Lydia and Caleb, the tragic event that they are in many ways responsible for, the aftermath and their wildly unhealthy coping strategies – seems to not matter anymore. I can’t figure out if this is the point; that something else (i.e. the climate) matters more? If so, I personally don’t think it was executed well. The next twenty to thirty years are laid out quickly and in a distanced sort of way, with the focus being on the major climate changes ravaging the world. Going to this from a minutely detailed window into their relationship, and at such a crucial point, it honestly felt like the ending to a different book. Sure, there are little hints and conversations throughout of the climate crisis – and I usually love a climate-focused book – but nothing to indicate that this was where we would end up. I see positive reviews who don’t mind it or think it fit well, so maybe I just don’t get it, but to me it was jarring and frustrating. And that’s a real shame when the rest of the book had me so weirdly enthralled.
Cold New Climate was a wild ride. I read the first half at a fairly normal pace, took a break for a few days, and then sped through the second half in 24 hours. It was a positively compulsive read once we hit the point of no return – but kind of in the way you can’t stop looking at a train wreck. I kept turning the pages in incredulous disbelief at the choices of the two main characters, but especially Lydia, who seems by the end of part two to have lost all sense of reality.
And then, quite in the middle of what seems like a breakdown in the making, we get to part three (which is only the last 15 or so pages of the book) and everything the story has built so far – the relationship between Lydia and Caleb, the tragic event that they are in many ways responsible for, the aftermath and their wildly unhealthy coping strategies – seems to not matter anymore. I can’t figure out if this is the point; that something else (i.e. the climate) matters more? If so, I personally don’t think it was executed well. The next twenty to thirty years are laid out quickly and in a distanced sort of way, with the focus being on the major climate changes ravaging the world. Going to this from a minutely detailed window into their relationship, and at such a crucial point, it honestly felt like the ending to a different book. Sure, there are little hints and conversations throughout of the climate crisis – and I usually love a climate-focused book – but nothing to indicate that this was where we would end up. I see positive reviews who don’t mind it or think it fit well, so maybe I just don’t get it, but to me it was jarring and frustrating. And that’s a real shame when the rest of the book had me so weirdly enthralled.
June 28, 2021
"She told him she was sure that she would come back replenished and carefree and committed and affectionate. She told him how badly she wanted to be all of those things."
From the blurb:
Lydia is unsettled in her New York life. She takes herself away to Greece secure in the belief her much older partner Tom will be there on her return. When she arrives back, she discovers he’s fallen in love with someone else. Her life in disarray, Lydia faces a future in which nothing is secure. When she reconnects with Tom’s teenage son Caleb, all three lives are recast in shocking and devastating ways.
Review:
For the avoidance of doubt, yes, this is indeed a novel about a woman (Lydia) falling in love with her partner’s son (Caleb), and this being reciprocated. Lydia was not married to her partner, but she was involved with him since Caleb was a small child, so it would be fair to refer to this as a sort of stepmother/stepson relationship. A disgusted family friend describes the liaison as ‘incest’ at one point in the novel. Lydia is thirty-seven and Caleb is nineteen; even though he is technically an adult, he has suffered from mental health difficulties and is not in the best place to be making such monumental decisions in his life.
If you’re feeling unsettled and disturbed by this premise, please don’t worry. This novel is not a romance and the author is clearly under no illusions about it being so.
Lydia’s narration portrays a woman who is barely there at all. The lack of quotation marks only add to the disorienting feeling. It’s hard to be angry or condemn the actions of someone who seems absent from their own life. We also, at times, have insight into Caleb’s mind, and he is certainly more matter of fact in his attitude. They are an odd pair and not just for the obvious reasons. While most of the novel focuses on their relationship, the theme of the environment begins to crop up as the story progresses.
At first, it seems to come out of nowhere. Lydia will suddenly start talking about it during conversations, the few occasions where she appears to come out of her shell, her passion leaping out from the pages. Later on in the novel, this theme becomes entirely central. It was a bold and clever choice of the author to incorporate climate change and its results into her work, truly portraying the devastation it causes.
This is far, far more than simply a 'love' story or a stark warning and reminder about the environmental issues facing us all. It's a real gut-punch of a novel, an original and assured debut. I have no doubt that the characters and story-line will continue to linger in my mind for a long time to come.
With many thanks to Turnaround Publisher Services for providing me with this copy.
From the blurb:
Lydia is unsettled in her New York life. She takes herself away to Greece secure in the belief her much older partner Tom will be there on her return. When she arrives back, she discovers he’s fallen in love with someone else. Her life in disarray, Lydia faces a future in which nothing is secure. When she reconnects with Tom’s teenage son Caleb, all three lives are recast in shocking and devastating ways.
Review:
For the avoidance of doubt, yes, this is indeed a novel about a woman (Lydia) falling in love with her partner’s son (Caleb), and this being reciprocated. Lydia was not married to her partner, but she was involved with him since Caleb was a small child, so it would be fair to refer to this as a sort of stepmother/stepson relationship. A disgusted family friend describes the liaison as ‘incest’ at one point in the novel. Lydia is thirty-seven and Caleb is nineteen; even though he is technically an adult, he has suffered from mental health difficulties and is not in the best place to be making such monumental decisions in his life.
If you’re feeling unsettled and disturbed by this premise, please don’t worry. This novel is not a romance and the author is clearly under no illusions about it being so.
Lydia’s narration portrays a woman who is barely there at all. The lack of quotation marks only add to the disorienting feeling. It’s hard to be angry or condemn the actions of someone who seems absent from their own life. We also, at times, have insight into Caleb’s mind, and he is certainly more matter of fact in his attitude. They are an odd pair and not just for the obvious reasons. While most of the novel focuses on their relationship, the theme of the environment begins to crop up as the story progresses.
At first, it seems to come out of nowhere. Lydia will suddenly start talking about it during conversations, the few occasions where she appears to come out of her shell, her passion leaping out from the pages. Later on in the novel, this theme becomes entirely central. It was a bold and clever choice of the author to incorporate climate change and its results into her work, truly portraying the devastation it causes.
This is far, far more than simply a 'love' story or a stark warning and reminder about the environmental issues facing us all. It's a real gut-punch of a novel, an original and assured debut. I have no doubt that the characters and story-line will continue to linger in my mind for a long time to come.
With many thanks to Turnaround Publisher Services for providing me with this copy.
June 9, 2021
The novel follows Lydia a woman married to an older man, who feels unsatisfied with her marriage. She takes a trip to Greece to find some clarity and comes back home to her life being completely upside down.
The authors prose is incredibly detailed intertwining the events of Lydia’s complex love life and the world. This is a morally complex story and I found the main characters really un likable, but I couldn’t stop reading it.
This book is certainly not uplifting but the story is undoubtedly compelling. I’m a bit undecided about how much I liked this book. At times I was thinking how well written it was and surprised by the events...but overall I don’t know. That being said it’s a bold debut for both and exiting new publishing house and an author with a very distinct voice, looking forward to seeing what they do next ☀️
The authors prose is incredibly detailed intertwining the events of Lydia’s complex love life and the world. This is a morally complex story and I found the main characters really un likable, but I couldn’t stop reading it.
This book is certainly not uplifting but the story is undoubtedly compelling. I’m a bit undecided about how much I liked this book. At times I was thinking how well written it was and surprised by the events...but overall I don’t know. That being said it’s a bold debut for both and exiting new publishing house and an author with a very distinct voice, looking forward to seeing what they do next ☀️
July 13, 2024
I was absolutely hooked. Read this book in 2 days! But it's bonkers. I don't like the main character and I am completely baffled by why I was so gripped. I'm still not sure what I've just read. The characters are real and flawed. The story is simplistic, yet complex. Lots happens, yet nothing really happens, all at once. This is a book that will stay with me because I am left questioning so much about it.
Did I love it? No. Could I put it down? No. Did I like the characters? Not particularly, but yet they all stay with me.
Simple yet complex. Page turning. Definitely 100 per cent worth a read.
Did I love it? No. Could I put it down? No. Did I like the characters? Not particularly, but yet they all stay with me.
Simple yet complex. Page turning. Definitely 100 per cent worth a read.
December 20, 2021
Spellbinding writing. Lydia is bored of Tom - her much-older boyfriend - and so she takes herself off to Greece, telling him they need space and time. When she gets back, having missed him and decided she loves him after all, he’s fallen for someone else. And so the tortuous story begins. And continues, as she makes contact with Tom’s troubled son Caleb and their lives unfold.
It’s not a love story. The overarching theme is actually climate change, but the start of the story itself is so shocking that even the tone change in part 3 (which takes a totally different path and, I think, is the chapter that makes the book, even though it’s devastating) pales into insignificance beside the way it all began.
I’ll think about this book for ages.
It’s not a love story. The overarching theme is actually climate change, but the start of the story itself is so shocking that even the tone change in part 3 (which takes a totally different path and, I think, is the chapter that makes the book, even though it’s devastating) pales into insignificance beside the way it all began.
I’ll think about this book for ages.
Read
January 9, 2025First book of the year!
I bought this back in August, but only got through the first chapter. What unravelled in this second attempt was a book that I was not expecting to read. About half way through I had to grapple with the fact that the main character was despicable and what was happening here was just plain wrong. That made me, quite quickly, realise that I've recently been sticking somewhat in my comfort zone with books revolving around people I'd, at least like to, identify with. Good to not have that here! I read it almost perversely, curious as to what would happen next.
Is it well written? Yes. Is it the book I expected? No.
In one adjective? Shocking. It became a page-turner unlike I can remember experiencing recently. On one of those early January afternoons, just after I'd seriously considered dropping this book a second time (about half-way through), I sat transfixed on a lime green sofa through seventy shocking pages.
I bought this back in August, but only got through the first chapter. What unravelled in this second attempt was a book that I was not expecting to read. About half way through I had to grapple with the fact that the main character was despicable and what was happening here was just plain wrong. That made me, quite quickly, realise that I've recently been sticking somewhat in my comfort zone with books revolving around people I'd, at least like to, identify with. Good to not have that here! I read it almost perversely, curious as to what would happen next.
Is it well written? Yes. Is it the book I expected? No.
In one adjective? Shocking. It became a page-turner unlike I can remember experiencing recently. On one of those early January afternoons, just after I'd seriously considered dropping this book a second time (about half-way through), I sat transfixed on a lime green sofa through seventy shocking pages.
June 28, 2021
I really wanted to love this book. The cover alone made me want to read it. Ms. Wohl writes beautifully, but the story broke down. The last portion was a post-apocalyptic ending which I disliked intensely and seemed to have nothing to do with the preceding narrative. Ms. Wohl possesses considerable skill and talent in crafting her prose, but I did not like the characters. While I can sympathize with a young or middle-aged woman breaking down, the protagonist ultimately turned me off.
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