The High House (2021) by Jessie Greengrass

Book Review

The High House (2021)

by Jessie Greengrass

   This Costa Novel Prize shortlister written by British author Jessie Greengrass ticked all my boxes for a spontaneous Audiobook listen:  Nominated for a major literary award, written by a woman who isn't from the United States and has a heavy apocalypse theme in a literary, not genre, way.  There you go, that's all I need to give a book a shot.

  Caro, the main protagonist and one of three narrators, is the daughter of a man who is married to Francesca, her step mother and world-famous climate scientist.   She has a younger half-brother, Pauly.  Francesca and her Dad buy a house in an isolated part of England and commence turning it into a home to survive the end of the world.   Caro's perspective is that of the spoiled young adult hating her evil stepmom and she turns into an excellent example of an unlikeable central protagonist, particularly when she is contrasted to Sally, the daughter of a local who Francesca recruits as a caretaker in the event of her eventual demise (and also a some-times narrator, along with younger half-brother Pauly.)

  It is a hard and fast rule of the apocalypse in literary fiction that the perspective is always limited- sky-level overviews are strictly for genre works, and The High House doesn't disappoint, the characters never leave the immediate environs of the house itself, and the landscape plays a near Sebaldian role in the story (see nomination for major literary award.)  Events are witnessed via the television, and after that, the characters are left in isolation.

   Gradually, Caro comes to realize what everyone else in the book figured out long ago, that The High House is a remarkable act of parental love.