The High House: Shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award

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The premise is dark, but Greengrass's lyrical prose brings glimmers of light...Despite the devastation, this not-quite family finds small moments of love and happiness." - The Times Literary Supplement (UK) Built in around 1595 for the wealthy Dorrington family, the ornate timber framed building is reputed to be the largest surviving timber framed town house in England from the Tudor period. But there are limits even to what the ailing Grandy knows about how to survive, and, if the storm comes, it might not be enough.

The High House by Jessie Greengrass review - The Guardian

This is a slow moving, character driven story. We see the climate continuously change throughout, there’s talk about summers getting hotter and lasting longer, the storms getting bigger, birds missing their migrations, and it just keeps ramping up and up in such a way that just feels hopeless. and for a moment there was a gap in her fury, and she looked neither fierce nor righteous but only rather sad—as though she could see already how far she had failed, and wished only that the end would come, and let us all out.

This theme of loss and of not acting until it is too late also cleverly is reflected in the many relationships in the book – for example between Sal and her Grandy, Caro and Pauly, relationships whole gradual change goes unnoticed until fate or another person forces realisation (for example it takes Francesca’s quizzing of Grandy on the history of the area for Sal to realise how far she drifted from Grandy and her home village while absorbed in University life). The High House' quietly destroyed me, because it portrays an oncoming future that I already believe in.

The High House Swift Press | The High House

Allmählich wachsen alle in ihre Rolle hinein, finden sich in die neue Situation, wie es Menschen schon seit Urzeiten konnten, und leben ein sehr einfaches Leben, das relativ gemächlich abläuft und gelegentlich durch den Kampf gegen die Natur unterbrochen wird. Opa Grandy stirbt auch völlig unspektakulär an einer Krankheit, die durch sein Alter verursacht wird. At first I thought this boWhen I imagine the lives our children and grandchildren will have, I am overwhelmed. Every time I turn the heat up a notch, open a delivered meal to discover Styrofoam and plastic containers, every time I run the washing machine or turn on the oven or take a warm shower, I am aware that these things I have done all my life are luxuries enjoyed by a few, over a short period of time, and have contributed to our impending crisis.

The High House by Jessie Greengrass | Book review | The TLS The High House by Jessie Greengrass | Book review | The TLS

The Costas , which were originally established in 1971, recognise the year’s “most enjoyable” books across five categories, with 934 entries this year overall. The biography shortlist pits Ed Caesar’s story of British mountaineering legend Maurice Wilson, who attempted to climb Everest alone, against Guardian theatre critic Arifa Akbar’s memoir about the death of her sister from tuberculosis, John Preston’s portrait of Robert Maxwell, and Lea Ypi’s account of coming of age in communist Albania.

One of the most striking images in the book is of the fall of the last main building – the pub – with the locals having one last drink even as the pub was washed away around them.