A dark, horrible, and powerful novella.Ghost Wall tells the tale of Silvie and her family, who attempt to live like Iron Age Britons in the North of England. Silvie's father is an angry and dissatisfied bus driver whose obsession with Iron Age tools and rituals leads him to force his family into isolation. Out in the countryside of Northumberland, they hunt for rabbits and gather roots. But, of course, it all has a sinister twist.The harrowing prologue drew me into this book, but the mostly quiet pastoral story that follows belies how dark and deep the themes of this novel truly are. Still, it surprises me that so many see this as simply a feminist tale about abuse and downtrodden wives. The domestic abuse is only part of what this book tells us, and it is only the very surface level of the story.What Ghost Wall is really about is identity and misinformed ideas of racial purity. In a time of Brexit, this is a smart and subtle evisceration of "taking our country back"; of going back to some time of pure Britishness. A laughable notion. As is revealed through the conversations and the digging into the past in this novella: there has never been such a thing. Moss's criticism here does not seem to be of men who abuse their wives and children, but of people who revere the past. People who look to racial purity, our ancestors, gender roles, and building (ghost) walls as ideal examples of how to live. She compares modern humans to the Ancients, and neither of us come out looking too good.The only downside is that the ending was a little weak for me.Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube