Private Rites by Julia Armfield is a dark and sinister Speculative Fiction novel exploring the complicated aspects of familial relationships in the presence of shared family trauma set against a dying world that has fallen prey to global warming where coastal areas are now underwater and it rains ceaselessly. This novel is excellent for those who enjoy topics and themes surrounding family drama, and climate change with a foreboding atmosphere and lyrical prose.
Synopsis
In a dying world with ceaseless rain heavily impacted by global warming three estranged sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes are forced to reconnect following their father’s passing. As they work through the tangled feelings of grief, unresolved childhood trauma, and the longstanding complications of their relationship a shocking discovery from their father’s will sends the sisters into a tailspin creating a deep divide.
However, as the rain continues and the water rises they each are confronted with a startling shared memory that haunts them whispering of secret rituals and family revelations that will permanently alter and impact their lives forever.
Content: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Private Rites by Julia Armfield explored the topic of global warming and familial relationships intriguingly. We see the estranged siblings struggle with their strained relationships with each other in response to the trauma they experienced living with their cruel father the renowned architect, the mysterious disappearance of Agnes’s mother Marie, and Isla’s and Irene’s mother’s suicide. They grew up being pitted against one another by their father who judged them and treated them as an inconvenience.
We’re also given a glimpse into their intimate relationships and how their personalities, the impending doom of a dying world, and trauma impact these areas of their life. Isla is trying to understand why her marriage failed and is refusing to sign her divorce papers. She struggles with the need to feel seen and appreciated by those she loves and the incessant need to fix and control them.
Irene is comfortable in her anger and oppositional attitude towards her sisters and fails to recognize her half-sister Agnes. Her partner Jude does an excellent job of balancing out all her sharp edges and supporting her and has an unflinching sense of duty to make things better in the world despite its current condition.
Agnes is free and unfettered doesn’t want to be weighed down by responsibilities or attachments and seeks casual sexual encounters with strangers. Until she meets Julia and they slowly form a bond and her nihilistic view begins to shift towards becoming more hopeful.
As if that’s not enough the world is falling apart around them as many of the coastal areas have gone underwater and the rain continues ceaselessly causing the lower class citizens to seek housing in high rises while the middle class seeks housing closer to the hills and the upper class being able to afford technologically advanced housing high up in the hills. It’s also interesting to note that their father was the one to design many of these homes.
As the story unfolds we see them trying to live as normal a life as they can with Isla being a counselor, Irene working as a writer and Agnes working as a barista. Interestingly, we see through their lives how climate change impacts them and where they fall in the pecking order with Isla living in the hills, Irene in a high rise, and Agnes in a lower rise with more damage and flooding.
Underneath all of the ordinariness of this story, there’s a more sinister edge which we see in bits and pieces as the sisters reflect on their childhood and the shared memory of a night that they can’t quite understand or make sense of. Additionally, we see Agnes’s uptick in anxiety as she begins to encounter strangers who stare at her or enter into strange exchanges with her making her feel uncomfortable.
All these events build into a crescendo reaching a fever pitch the last 20% of the book to its startling conclusion.
Writing Style: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
There’s such an easy confidence in Armfield’s writing and prose. While in the beginning, it was a challenge to get into because I found it to be a bit too dense for casual reading as I felt my brain needed to be turned on to appreciate the complexities of this story. However, when I was fully engaged I took pleasure in her lyrical descriptive prose that held a melancholic and nihilistic tone which fit the overall theme of the story.
Seeing each sister’s viewpoint regarding the world and their situations was also brilliant as it showcased how each class level responded to the impending doom presented by global warming which was an interesting exploration of how these issues impact different class levels and why it’s so easy for more affluent classes and people to be so lack about caring about these topics and concerns since there’s this belief that class, wealth and privilege allows you protection from these realities.
Additionally, the inclusion of the other viewpoint laid the groundwork for the conclusion while also further expanding on the desperate situation of the climate crisis.
All of this was excellent at building this mysterious and foreboding atmosphere while also giving the reader a sense of disillusionment as you struggle to comprehend how all these pieces fit together.
Readability: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
As I said it was a bit of a struggle to get into this book at the beginning which I won’t fault the book for it was more so my lack of focus. That being said I do feel this is a novel that you should read when your brain capacity is at its highest.
While I don’t believe this is a difficult book I do find it to be a bit complex and due to the pacing being a bit slower and Armfield being intentional with building her story, you’ll want to be able to pay attention to the details as they’re important. However, I did enjoy reading this book
Plot Development:⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
There was very little plot in this story and was primarily character-driven. Also, the pacing of this novel is slow and intentional. What little pieces of plot we did get involving climate change and the fractured relationships between the siblings were handled well. I appreciated how the weather patterns mirrored the sibling conflict and how particular events for Agnes began to escalate moving the timeline along for the concluding events.
However, I do feel there could’ve been more to progress and move the plot along as there was very little to support the dramatic shift that occurs towards 80% of the book where we go from a slow-paced meandering story heavy on the characters to a fast-paced action-packed ending that throws everything together giving the reader a bit of whiplash.
Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
These characters were not likable at all to me. Isla suffered from a savior complex and wanted to be adored and loved for being able to take care of and control others despite them not wanting or needing her to do this. Irene was self-absorbed and perpetually angry and antagonistic taking offense over the smallest thing. Agnes was disconnected from her sisters and society as a whole and chose to just exist not seeing the use in trying anymore.
Being in their heads and hearing their thoughts sometimes was wild and quite an interesting experience. And despite me not really liking them I understood and even empathized with them because it was clear they suffered from trauma when they were children that had deeply impacted them.
However, despite their faults, there was a character arc as they began to grow and evolve, and while they did not become dramatically changed there was hope that they were working towards stepping in the right direction.
