Captivating ... Probing ... Armfield forgoes sentimental scenes and simple answers for suspense and horror, building an eerie mystery around an incident in Carmichael’s own house ... Armfield invites us in, honoring the greatness and darkness of Lear’s drama. Then, thrillingly, she starts throwing stones.
So compelling partly because both the narrator and the protagonists feel intensely drawn to this watery world, even as they know it signals their end ... Armfield is always committed to experiments with genre and here she rips away realism, suggesting the old novelistic forms are as inadequate now as the half‑hearted forms of political protest that take place in the background.
A strange, unsatisfying novel; perhaps it’s trying to do too many things at once ... The climate crisis, meanwhile, reads as background noise, a plot device that comes in handy at the end when the plot tips – puzzlingly – into something like folk horror. The themes that haunt Armfield are never fully fleshed out.
I love Armfield’s writing, but not so much apocalypse fiction, which is an unfair bias to bring to this review. I find hopelessness a turn-off ... Even if the generalised sadness of this novel doesn’t come close to the incisive political smarts of some of her other stuff...and even if the horror movie-style ending doesn’t quite land, I still enjoyed it. Armfield writes so gracefully
Atmospheric ... What makes Armfield’s apocalypse resonant (and relatable) is its banality. Her novelist’s eye is trained not on the social but on the psychological. The book’s most compelling insights are private ... Even if the considerable risks don’t always pay off, it’s impossible not to admire the ambition and daring of Julia Armfield’s hypnotic and deeply weird book.
Armfield’s haunting picture of a speculative future may be difficult to stomach, but the inclusion of devastating family dysfunction personalizes its tragic consequences.
Grim and absorbing ... Though the apocalyptic denouement feels a bit contrived, Armfield succeeds at conjuring her characters’ existential fears. This well-wrought family drama is tough to shake.
