Private Rites

In Private Rites, by Julia Armfield (U.S. publication day December 3, 2024) Great Britain is somewhere in the future with climate change causing near-constant rain. The sea level has risen and the population remaining in the city has adapted as best they can. Isla, Irene, and Agnes’s father, a famous architect who has just died, coped by building a glass house that can rise and float with the water. But there is a shortage of places to live with the inundation, and the sisters are all dealing with their grief–that of the changing world and what seems like imminent catastrophic flood–and the death of their father, who none of them were particularly close to.

All three are queer. Isla is a therapist, whose wife asked for a divorce and has moved upland, but Isla doesn’t quite know how to move on. Irene is an accountant, who is partnered with Jude, a government relocation assistance worker, and Agnes, younger than Isla and Irene by about 10 years, and who had a different mother, works in a coffee shop and avoids any relationships that involve feelings.

Armfield’s writing is gorgeous, and full of insights that I had to highlight for future reference. As the sisters follow their old patterns through the reading of their father’s will, and the funeral, Armfield has crafted a world that seems more and more dangerous–can the sisters rely on each other, finally, to get through this?

As in her debut novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, what starts out seeming to be a quiet, character-driven relationship drama subtly turns into literary horror. It’s masterful, and I enjoyed many things about it–the sisters relationship and the insights about it, especially.

I highly recommend it, and was pleased that I didn’t note any anti-fat bias. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC.