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Private Rites
From the award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, centering three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a drowning world
It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will.
More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams; Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling; and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.
It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their father dies. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will.
More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams; Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling; and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published June 11, 2024
About the author
Julia Armfield
9 books1,754 followersJulia Armfield was born in London in 1990. She is a fiction writer and occasional playwright with a Masters in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2019. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review short story prize 2018. Her first book, salt slow, is a collection of short stories about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. She won the Pushcart Prize in 2020. Julia Armfield lives and works in London.
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August 26, 2024
To be burnt out and drowning in anxieties and familial dysfunction is one thing but if the world is quite literally drowning in the endless rains of climate catastrophe you better hold on tight to the ones you love. Such is the case in Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, a feverishly haunting tale loosely modeled as a queer retelling of William Shakespeare’s King Lear with the passing of an estate to the three daughters of a celebrity architect in a water-logged near future teetering on the brink of utter collapse. Armfield delivers her signature blend of literary horror that truly sinks under your skin through jittery examinations of grief, love and family in a society seemingly resigned to its own extinction. It’s a sort of catastrophe apathy that aches with the dull yet distressing pain of a bruise, one that conjures up memories of society haphazardly attempting to be the same as it always was amidst the recent pandemic, with Armfield keeping much of the calamity in the background and scene setting of taking ferries to work over sunken portions of the city or the endless chaos of closures due to rain. Much like her previous novel, the extraordinary Our Wives Under the Sea, Armfield always resonates deeply with me in a way that reminds me of Jeanette Winterson using horror to shine a light on concepts of love and loss instead of fairy tales as Winterson does. With a disquieting gaze at a society resigned to its own destruction, the violent reactions in those overwhelmed by such loss, fraught interpersonal relations that juxtapose the hardships of fixing a breaking world with the difficulties of love, Private Rites hits high notes of anxiety and trauma both past and present in a story utterly drenched in dread.
‘What happened, then? Two mothers and a father. Three sisters and a house. A house which, once invaded, could not be closed again, was left open to the elements, to whomever wished to come inside.’
The famous passage from King Lear, ‘We that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long,’ takes on an eerie new layer of meaning in Armfield’s reconfigured Lear tale as the young sisters at the center of the story live under the growing dread that the number of possible tomorrows is rapidly reaching an end. It is a slow burn apocalypse of rain as ‘seasons and weather patterns blur into one,’ something that becomes so steady it seeps into normalcy. It remains a constant tone soaking every passage, omnipresent like a thorn in the mind yet left to fester as an overwhelming problem to hide behind a bandage of carrying on instead of addressing. ‘The great washout of the world and no sense that it might have been otherwise.’ Like in a western this watery landscape becomes a character in its own right with Armfield even giving “the city” its own perspective to chronicle the slow collapse and resignation of society in the face of impending doom.
In the overbearing hopelessness we find ‘Archaic practices resurfacing the way trends will,’ and cult behavior and erratic interactions begin to infest society. One might think of the ways society pushed to return during the recent pandemic and all the rhetoric of the “new normal”. In interview with Country Town & House, Armfield addresses her ideas around this:
The concept of drowning in the overwhelming weight of it all is expertly metaphor as literal drowning, with oceans and water being a common theme in Armfield’s works. ‘I looked around and realised how prevalent the ocean and the water is in a lot of really formative lesbian media,’ she explains. She has previously spoken on this in an interview with Them Magazine while discussing Our Wives Under the Sea with water as ‘a symbol of something forbidden,’ that functions as ‘a very natural setting for coming-out narratives…the sea
can be very calm on the surface, and something can be going on underneath. That speaks to the way that we as queer people have to be so many different things to so many different people.’ Such imagery permeates Private Rites as the turmoil beneath the surface of everyone begins to boil over under the constant stress of the world.
‘Death, after all, puts an end to the argument, but it also prolongs the silence forever.’
At the center of this is the Carmichael family, who’s patriarch, Stephen Carmichael, passes away as the story sets out. Praised as a ‘true genius’ for his architectural marvels that make him ‘the hero of the domestic space…snatching homes from sites grown uninhabitable and lifting them up out of harm's way.’ He is like a Frank Lloyd Wright responding to climate crisis, yet creating homes with a price sticker that cannot act as a life raft to the average person. Left behind are three sisters, Isla, Irene and Agnes, the latter born from a second wife who arrived after the tragic end of the elder sisters’ mother and quickly vanished after Agnes’ birth. It is a family where resentment has grown in the absence of trust and love and each plays out the role of a villain in the minds of the other. ‘Sisterhood, [Irene] thinks, is a trap. You all get stuck in certain roles forever.’ Yet as the world becomes increasingly hostile, each seeks to fill the wound left by a lost mother and frequently finds only disappointment.
‘The rain falls, the night continues–black horizon and the pull of what’s beneath.’
An aspect that hit hard are the ways problems seems to compound upon problems and avoidance only worsens them. ‘The problem is’ becomes nearly a mantra amidst the prose, each exposing another facet of issues, each amalgamating towards apocalyptic distress.
The novel is effectively anxiety inducing as it speaks exactly to the growing issues in our own time. Working a library, for instance, one can see the ways for-profit privatization erodes public goods and grows a class divide where private services become more expensive and public services, like Jude’s job, are understaffed and underfunded. And we consider it all just the way things are and dismiss any attempt at deconstructing or attempting sustainable alternatives.
The problem is, hardships are easier to ignore and hope they go away. Global catastrophe feels beyond a singular person and easier to hope for a miracle. Cults appear who have ideas around sacrifice, for instance, and little beyond magical thinking seems to be occurring. To fix the world is hard, yet to live in a failing world is harder.
‘We love people before we notice we love them, but the act of naming the love makes it different, drags it out into different light.’
Something Armfield does so effectively, however, is examine love in the light of all these hardships. With each sister, Armfield examines relationships—Irene has recently separated from a partner, Isla’s Jude (they are possibly the best character in the book) remains calm and loves her despite her rather thorny personality, and Agnes is slipping into a partnership with Stephanie who provides a stability in an unstable world. But love is hard.
Despite the hardships, love is viewed as being worth it, something that could be applied to the world itself. To save the world would require great sacrifices and a lot of effort but, like love, it could be worthwhile. I’ve always believed love makes it all bearable, a bad day of crisis washes away when you see the one you love, when they show they care by bringing you food (like Jude), when they hold you as you break down and keep your pieces together (like Stephanie). Love gets you through. ‘I could be good with this, if I could have this,’ thinks Agnes, ‘I don’t think it would matter if things had been different or we’d had a different world or more to hope for. I could be happy here.’
‘Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realizing that one has company.’
Private Rites is, ultimately, a horror novel though one that keeps the horror pushed aside until it becomes too much and bursts upon everyone. ‘This is the wrong genre’ Agnes thinks as the dramatic conclusion begins, which perfectly mirrors the horror faced by society as the terror of collapse bursts in after decades of trying to push climate crisis out of their minds. The violence of the ending is shocking and alarming because we see it enacted by the long plans of people and at their hands, however is the climate collapse not also the slow work of human hands either actively bringing about the violence or passively allowing it? Armfield juxtaposes the two for sharp, searing effect and while it arrives as rather jarring it is a reminder that the problems we push aside never vanish. They fester and, eventually, attack.
‘You can hear it if you listen; the slow dissolution, the panic becoming something else.’
A slow burn of a novel spiraling between perspectives and giving the city a space to chronicle its own decay, Private Rites slowly seeps into the reader and shakes them to the core. Haunting and hellishly relevant, it is a tale of family, of resentment, of collapse and consequences. But at the heart of matters, it is a story about love. Endlessly engaging and eerily compelling, Armfield has delivered another masterful novel.
4.5/5
‘What happened, then? Two mothers and a father. Three sisters and a house. A house which, once invaded, could not be closed again, was left open to the elements, to whomever wished to come inside.’
The famous passage from King Lear, ‘We that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long,’ takes on an eerie new layer of meaning in Armfield’s reconfigured Lear tale as the young sisters at the center of the story live under the growing dread that the number of possible tomorrows is rapidly reaching an end. It is a slow burn apocalypse of rain as ‘seasons and weather patterns blur into one,’ something that becomes so steady it seeps into normalcy. It remains a constant tone soaking every passage, omnipresent like a thorn in the mind yet left to fester as an overwhelming problem to hide behind a bandage of carrying on instead of addressing. ‘The great washout of the world and no sense that it might have been otherwise.’ Like in a western this watery landscape becomes a character in its own right with Armfield even giving “the city” its own perspective to chronicle the slow collapse and resignation of society in the face of impending doom.
‘It is difficult, these days, to know how to be. Not a new phenomenon, of course, but one lent a certain urgency by the situation. People protest, or forget to protest. People hoard food, medical supplies, use them up and hoard them again…they suspect that there is less time than predicted, throw parties to celebrate the endless ending, pretend the coming on of something new. It’s always been this way, always worsening. A contradiction: the fact of something always being the case and yet that case being flux, deterioration.’
In the overbearing hopelessness we find ‘Archaic practices resurfacing the way trends will,’ and cult behavior and erratic interactions begin to infest society. One might think of the ways society pushed to return during the recent pandemic and all the rhetoric of the “new normal”. In interview with Country Town & House, Armfield addresses her ideas around this:
‘Something I’ve been preoccupied with throughout my career is the concept of a pervasive norm – the way that banality and dailiness always assert themselves no matter the extremes people find themselves in. This can be a good thing, inasmuch as it shows how adaptable people can be, but it also signifies a kind of apathy and powerlessness in the face of an overriding system, and I’m extremely interested in that.’
The concept of drowning in the overwhelming weight of it all is expertly metaphor as literal drowning, with oceans and water being a common theme in Armfield’s works. ‘I looked around and realised how prevalent the ocean and the water is in a lot of really formative lesbian media,’ she explains. She has previously spoken on this in an interview with Them Magazine while discussing Our Wives Under the Sea with water as ‘a symbol of something forbidden,’ that functions as ‘a very natural setting for coming-out narratives…the sea
can be very calm on the surface, and something can be going on underneath. That speaks to the way that we as queer people have to be so many different things to so many different people.’ Such imagery permeates Private Rites as the turmoil beneath the surface of everyone begins to boil over under the constant stress of the world.
‘Death, after all, puts an end to the argument, but it also prolongs the silence forever.’
At the center of this is the Carmichael family, who’s patriarch, Stephen Carmichael, passes away as the story sets out. Praised as a ‘true genius’ for his architectural marvels that make him ‘the hero of the domestic space…snatching homes from sites grown uninhabitable and lifting them up out of harm's way.’ He is like a Frank Lloyd Wright responding to climate crisis, yet creating homes with a price sticker that cannot act as a life raft to the average person. Left behind are three sisters, Isla, Irene and Agnes, the latter born from a second wife who arrived after the tragic end of the elder sisters’ mother and quickly vanished after Agnes’ birth. It is a family where resentment has grown in the absence of trust and love and each plays out the role of a villain in the minds of the other. ‘Sisterhood, [Irene] thinks, is a trap. You all get stuck in certain roles forever.’ Yet as the world becomes increasingly hostile, each seeks to fill the wound left by a lost mother and frequently finds only disappointment.
‘The rain falls, the night continues–black horizon and the pull of what’s beneath.’
An aspect that hit hard are the ways problems seems to compound upon problems and avoidance only worsens them. ‘The problem is’ becomes nearly a mantra amidst the prose, each exposing another facet of issues, each amalgamating towards apocalyptic distress.
‘The problem, of course, is the general worsening of things—things being housing, and the weather, and The State Of It All. The problem is private companies springing up every other week to mishandle the business of dealing with it and siphon off funding in the process. The problem is the fact that there’s no money, and nowhere to put people, and the fact that they’re working on a skeleton staff with no time and no way to do more than they’re already doing…They are, as Jude reflects, a ship being mended as it sails, except that they aren’t really being mended and their sailing has become less a smooth progress and more the basic act of staying afloat.’
The novel is effectively anxiety inducing as it speaks exactly to the growing issues in our own time. Working a library, for instance, one can see the ways for-profit privatization erodes public goods and grows a class divide where private services become more expensive and public services, like Jude’s job, are understaffed and underfunded. And we consider it all just the way things are and dismiss any attempt at deconstructing or attempting sustainable alternatives.
‘The problem, of course, is that there’s always something, and it can be easier on occasion to ignore it and take your partner back to bed.’
The problem is, hardships are easier to ignore and hope they go away. Global catastrophe feels beyond a singular person and easier to hope for a miracle. Cults appear who have ideas around sacrifice, for instance, and little beyond magical thinking seems to be occurring. To fix the world is hard, yet to live in a failing world is harder.
‘We love people before we notice we love them, but the act of naming the love makes it different, drags it out into different light.’
Something Armfield does so effectively, however, is examine love in the light of all these hardships. With each sister, Armfield examines relationships—Irene has recently separated from a partner, Isla’s Jude (they are possibly the best character in the book) remains calm and loves her despite her rather thorny personality, and Agnes is slipping into a partnership with Stephanie who provides a stability in an unstable world. But love is hard.
‘The problem with love, of course, is that it frequently asks too much of unlovable people. It can be hard, on even the best of days, to compel oneself to be selfless and patient and undemanding or even halfway reasonable when one is not given to any of those behaviours. But these are nonetheless the qualities that love demands.
Despite the hardships, love is viewed as being worth it, something that could be applied to the world itself. To save the world would require great sacrifices and a lot of effort but, like love, it could be worthwhile. I’ve always believed love makes it all bearable, a bad day of crisis washes away when you see the one you love, when they show they care by bringing you food (like Jude), when they hold you as you break down and keep your pieces together (like Stephanie). Love gets you through. ‘I could be good with this, if I could have this,’ thinks Agnes, ‘I don’t think it would matter if things had been different or we’d had a different world or more to hope for. I could be happy here.’
‘Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realizing that one has company.’
Private Rites is, ultimately, a horror novel though one that keeps the horror pushed aside until it becomes too much and bursts upon everyone. ‘This is the wrong genre’ Agnes thinks as the dramatic conclusion begins, which perfectly mirrors the horror faced by society as the terror of collapse bursts in after decades of trying to push climate crisis out of their minds. The violence of the ending is shocking and alarming because we see it enacted by the long plans of people and at their hands, however is the climate collapse not also the slow work of human hands either actively bringing about the violence or passively allowing it? Armfield juxtaposes the two for sharp, searing effect and while it arrives as rather jarring it is a reminder that the problems we push aside never vanish. They fester and, eventually, attack.
‘You can hear it if you listen; the slow dissolution, the panic becoming something else.’
A slow burn of a novel spiraling between perspectives and giving the city a space to chronicle its own decay, Private Rites slowly seeps into the reader and shakes them to the core. Haunting and hellishly relevant, it is a tale of family, of resentment, of collapse and consequences. But at the heart of matters, it is a story about love. Endlessly engaging and eerily compelling, Armfield has delivered another masterful novel.
4.5/5
Want to read
May 9, 2024as long as julia armfield writes spooky gay literary horror, i will be reading
May 23, 2024
It's no secret that this was my most anticipated book of the year and that I had expected it to be my favourite book ever... was it? no. were my expectations too high? I fear they were.
Julia Armfield is an incredible novelist and writes about grief, sisterhood, womanhood and melancholy in a way that resonates with me so deeply; that was no different with this book. So much of this was eloquent, heart wrenching and painfully relatable and I did underline SO MANY quotes as my favourites.
As a novel though, I felt like so much of the apocalypse and end of the world state that the premise promised was missing. This book was incredibly quiet and subtle and whilst (from a narrative POV) I can understand why, it didn't make it any more of an enjoyable read. Dare I say I felt myself dragging my feet with it slightly. The last 50 pages for me were PERFECT and exactly what I wanted from this book ~ pretending that the rest was exactly like that, it would've been all I wanted and more.
Saying this though, I can acknowledge that my expectations were VERY high and perhaps that impacted my reading experience slightly. I would still definitely recommend this, especially if you have already established that you like Julia Armfield's writing!
(3.5 stars)
Julia Armfield is an incredible novelist and writes about grief, sisterhood, womanhood and melancholy in a way that resonates with me so deeply; that was no different with this book. So much of this was eloquent, heart wrenching and painfully relatable and I did underline SO MANY quotes as my favourites.
As a novel though, I felt like so much of the apocalypse and end of the world state that the premise promised was missing. This book was incredibly quiet and subtle and whilst (from a narrative POV) I can understand why, it didn't make it any more of an enjoyable read. Dare I say I felt myself dragging my feet with it slightly. The last 50 pages for me were PERFECT and exactly what I wanted from this book ~ pretending that the rest was exactly like that, it would've been all I wanted and more.
Saying this though, I can acknowledge that my expectations were VERY high and perhaps that impacted my reading experience slightly. I would still definitely recommend this, especially if you have already established that you like Julia Armfield's writing!
(3.5 stars)
March 26, 2024
Julia Armfield’s “lesbian Lear” takes three queer sisters and places them in the middle of - what she’s called - a “mundane apocalypse.” The sisters inhabit a drowned world, a place of unceasing rain which is slowly but inexorably wearing away its very foundations. Coastal regions have long ago disappeared, as have things like cars and plane travel, most people live in cities since these are the only areas that retain some semblance of what was formally normality. Government’s largely absent and when it does intervene incompetent. The wealthy inhabit custom-made houses in the higher-most regions while ordinary people are mainly confined to the upper reaches of crumbling high-rises. It’s a similar scenario to the ones that writers like Ballard found fascinating but, unlike Ballard’s work, there are few crescendos here, no violent rupture in the fabric of society. Instead, everything’s dying off by degrees: some people have joined end-of-the-world cults with their obscure rituals; a few gather together to stage futile protests; others simply choose to vanish. But the mass of the population lives in a kind of stupefied denial, too fearful to look directly into the face of disaster. They cling to old routines, commuting to work, moaning about their bosses or colleagues or flatmates. They come together with one another but just as often drift apart.
Armfield’s vivid descriptions of rain seeping into every corner of daily life owes a partial debt to Arthur Machen, a favourite writer of Armfield’s, particularly the emphasis on its impact on mental as much as physical space. Amidst this simmering discontent, siblings Isla, Irene and half-sister Agnes are intent on maintaining a careful distance from one another. Although Isla and Irene are united in their contempt for younger, half-sister Agnes. Agnes meanwhile takes pleasure in small acts of subversion from mislabelling coffee cups in the café where she works to fucking random women in changing rooms. But the siblings’ awkward stalemate’s disrupted by their father’s death, a once-revered architect and an exacting, sadistic parent. His death brings the sisters back to the house he built for them, stirring up long-buried emotions and unsettling childhood memories, conjuring an atmosphere of growing, Jacksonian unease. Then weird things start to happen all of which appear to be converging on Agnes.
Armfield’s prose is impressively sinuous, her imagery striking, and her vision of a blighted future created by climate change all too convincing. But as a novel I found this unbalanced, difficult to place. On one level it’s an unusual blend of folk horror and speculative fiction but the bulk of the actual narrative’s caught up in detailing the fractured interactions between the three sisters and the aftermath of early trauma – which wasn’t always that appealing to me. There are some pleasing folkloric and mythic elements woven into Armfield’s story but they’re oddly underdeveloped, and I thought the final reveal was too heavily signposted – perhaps because I’m overly familiar with the classic horror movies Armfield loves and directly/indirectly references throughout. But perhaps that’s the point? That conventional horror plots are less than scary when compared to the sheer scale of the environmental blight that lies ahead. Armfield’s story hints at alternative ways of tackling this looming disaster but her ultimate message seems less about concrete solutions than it is emotional responses: the importance of empathy, of making and sustaining meaningful connections.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher 4th Estate
Rating: 3 to 3.5
Armfield’s vivid descriptions of rain seeping into every corner of daily life owes a partial debt to Arthur Machen, a favourite writer of Armfield’s, particularly the emphasis on its impact on mental as much as physical space. Amidst this simmering discontent, siblings Isla, Irene and half-sister Agnes are intent on maintaining a careful distance from one another. Although Isla and Irene are united in their contempt for younger, half-sister Agnes. Agnes meanwhile takes pleasure in small acts of subversion from mislabelling coffee cups in the café where she works to fucking random women in changing rooms. But the siblings’ awkward stalemate’s disrupted by their father’s death, a once-revered architect and an exacting, sadistic parent. His death brings the sisters back to the house he built for them, stirring up long-buried emotions and unsettling childhood memories, conjuring an atmosphere of growing, Jacksonian unease. Then weird things start to happen all of which appear to be converging on Agnes.
Armfield’s prose is impressively sinuous, her imagery striking, and her vision of a blighted future created by climate change all too convincing. But as a novel I found this unbalanced, difficult to place. On one level it’s an unusual blend of folk horror and speculative fiction but the bulk of the actual narrative’s caught up in detailing the fractured interactions between the three sisters and the aftermath of early trauma – which wasn’t always that appealing to me. There are some pleasing folkloric and mythic elements woven into Armfield’s story but they’re oddly underdeveloped, and I thought the final reveal was too heavily signposted – perhaps because I’m overly familiar with the classic horror movies Armfield loves and directly/indirectly references throughout. But perhaps that’s the point? That conventional horror plots are less than scary when compared to the sheer scale of the environmental blight that lies ahead. Armfield’s story hints at alternative ways of tackling this looming disaster but her ultimate message seems less about concrete solutions than it is emotional responses: the importance of empathy, of making and sustaining meaningful connections.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher 4th Estate
Rating: 3 to 3.5
March 21, 2024
Armfield is such an artful poet of wateriness. Set amidst a visceral imagining of climate catastrophe, this depicts with uncanny foresight what it might be like to live in a city like London when the waters rise: there are ramshackle jetties and water taxis trying to compensate for the fact that the outer edges of train lines are under water; outages of power are commonplace; alarms and sirens go off but no-one knows what they signify or what to do; and seals, pelicans and eels are moving into homes.
In the foreground are the archetypal three sisters - Isla, Irene and Agnes - all struggling in their own ways. The text references King Lear and Macbeth for necessary allusions to conflict and inheritance, a wayward and troubling father, absent mothers, from the former; and something more uncanny, weird and superstitious from the latter. For one of the outcomes of this end of days scenario is the rise of neo-religions and cults.
In some ways I found this narrative less definitive than Our Wives Under the Sea: the momentum is more blurred, less directional, more... watery and undefined. The denouement is, perhaps, a bit more dramatic with slightly less of a logical build-up. But those are small niggles.
What this succeeds in doing brilliantly is to delineate the nuanced relationships between the three sisters, the ways they simultaneously resent and cling to each other, the impact of parental troubles that shadow their growth and haunt their present. The febrile nature of their connections, and those they share with their wives and partners, is as brittle, enthreatened and undefined as the water in which this book is seeped. Their passivity, their hovering between safety, endurance and defiance is reflected more widely: Isla and Irene's cocooning is contrasted with Isla's ex-wife's determination to seek a better way to live - or, at least, see what's left of the world before it drowns. At the same time, the snarky, resentful, embittered yet, ultimately, strong sisterly bond feels tangible.
Atmospheric and controlled, this is a horrifying book delivered with a light touch. There have been other novelistic depictions of where our continued evasions of climate policies could lead but this feels like one of the best imagined to me precisely because it's not overly dramatic: the slow slide into disaster feels oddly realistic as is the idea of a population essentially abandoned by a government: it's the small touches that make this work - chicory coffee (presumably because the beans can't be grown or imported), the way life continues with people getting to work as far as they can (with only an off-stage mention of an anti-work protest), houses that either collapse or those, for the wealthy, that can lift themselves above the saturated earth.
The interdependencies between the personal story of the sisters and the wider one of climate catastrophe play off each other in a lovely mutuality. It's a bit of a wrench - and a relief! - to look up from this book and realise that it's not raining, that the water isn't rising in the basement... and that it's sunny outside my window!
Immersive, thoughtful and lyrical.
Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
In the foreground are the archetypal three sisters - Isla, Irene and Agnes - all struggling in their own ways. The text references King Lear and Macbeth for necessary allusions to conflict and inheritance, a wayward and troubling father, absent mothers, from the former; and something more uncanny, weird and superstitious from the latter. For one of the outcomes of this end of days scenario is the rise of neo-religions and cults.
In some ways I found this narrative less definitive than Our Wives Under the Sea: the momentum is more blurred, less directional, more... watery and undefined. The denouement is, perhaps, a bit more dramatic with slightly less of a logical build-up. But those are small niggles.
What this succeeds in doing brilliantly is to delineate the nuanced relationships between the three sisters, the ways they simultaneously resent and cling to each other, the impact of parental troubles that shadow their growth and haunt their present. The febrile nature of their connections, and those they share with their wives and partners, is as brittle, enthreatened and undefined as the water in which this book is seeped. Their passivity, their hovering between safety, endurance and defiance is reflected more widely: Isla and Irene's cocooning is contrasted with Isla's ex-wife's determination to seek a better way to live - or, at least, see what's left of the world before it drowns. At the same time, the snarky, resentful, embittered yet, ultimately, strong sisterly bond feels tangible.
Atmospheric and controlled, this is a horrifying book delivered with a light touch. There have been other novelistic depictions of where our continued evasions of climate policies could lead but this feels like one of the best imagined to me precisely because it's not overly dramatic: the slow slide into disaster feels oddly realistic as is the idea of a population essentially abandoned by a government: it's the small touches that make this work - chicory coffee (presumably because the beans can't be grown or imported), the way life continues with people getting to work as far as they can (with only an off-stage mention of an anti-work protest), houses that either collapse or those, for the wealthy, that can lift themselves above the saturated earth.
The interdependencies between the personal story of the sisters and the wider one of climate catastrophe play off each other in a lovely mutuality. It's a bit of a wrench - and a relief! - to look up from this book and realise that it's not raining, that the water isn't rising in the basement... and that it's sunny outside my window!
Immersive, thoughtful and lyrical.
Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
August 21, 2024
This is pitched as a queer King Lear, but it strikes me more as a reboot of J.G. Ballard. The Drowned World, but anxious 21st-century lesbians instead of debonair mid-20th-century straight men. Both novels drown the world not to see it drowned, but rather to throw into relief their characters’ inner consciousness; metaphor, but also psychological experiment. Neither novel has much at all to do with global warming—which is frankly, in both cases, a huge relief.
Private Rites is a swampy, steamy, damp novel, that feels not unlike having sex while crying. It is overwritten, especially early on—always two or three images where one would suffice, extra clauses in service of extra adjectives. But as in Armfield’s equally watery first novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, stylistic excess serves the book’s conceit; the prose, like the world, waterlogged and dripping. The novel is badly guilty of one of contemporary storytelling’s worst habits: the substitution of childhood trauma for genuine inner life. And yet, Armfield evades the trap even as she steps in it. She refuses to let trauma explain; is uninterested (as Ballard, and for that matter Shakespeare, were uninterested) in any kind of easy psychological legibility. Is up to something more interesting.
“Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realizing that one has company.”
Private Rites is far better than Our Wives Under the Sea, and Our Wives Under the Sea was quite good. Everything about Armfield’s second novel is richer and more specific than in her first—the characters, the worldbuilding, the symbolism. The novel’s shifts in timeline and point-of-view are beautifully done. Armfield has little interest in giving her three sisters distinct voices; rather, she lets each sisters' perspective glance off the others, so that the novel seems almost to spin or swirl in place. Sentences unspool in flurries of commas, too artful for their own good—except that as they whirl and pool like rainwater, prose that should be ponderous shows itself light, flexible, even funny, the pleasurable excess of it all in delicious tension with the novel’s endless gray rain.
Sometimes, even my five-star reviews can read a little ambiguously. So I will be clear: this is one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. I recommend it without reservation.
Private Rites is a swampy, steamy, damp novel, that feels not unlike having sex while crying. It is overwritten, especially early on—always two or three images where one would suffice, extra clauses in service of extra adjectives. But as in Armfield’s equally watery first novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, stylistic excess serves the book’s conceit; the prose, like the world, waterlogged and dripping. The novel is badly guilty of one of contemporary storytelling’s worst habits: the substitution of childhood trauma for genuine inner life. And yet, Armfield evades the trap even as she steps in it. She refuses to let trauma explain; is uninterested (as Ballard, and for that matter Shakespeare, were uninterested) in any kind of easy psychological legibility. Is up to something more interesting.
“Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realizing that one has company.”
Private Rites is far better than Our Wives Under the Sea, and Our Wives Under the Sea was quite good. Everything about Armfield’s second novel is richer and more specific than in her first—the characters, the worldbuilding, the symbolism. The novel’s shifts in timeline and point-of-view are beautifully done. Armfield has little interest in giving her three sisters distinct voices; rather, she lets each sisters' perspective glance off the others, so that the novel seems almost to spin or swirl in place. Sentences unspool in flurries of commas, too artful for their own good—except that as they whirl and pool like rainwater, prose that should be ponderous shows itself light, flexible, even funny, the pleasurable excess of it all in delicious tension with the novel’s endless gray rain.
Sometimes, even my five-star reviews can read a little ambiguously. So I will be clear: this is one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. I recommend it without reservation.
October 8, 2023
Fucking get in! Julia Armfield is cemented as one of the best contemporary writers with this brilliant follow up to Salt Slow and Our Wives. More misery, more sex, more water - if somehow there are better books in 2024, it’ll be a mad year.
June 30, 2024
Private Rites follows the story of three queer sisters after their father's death, a strange architect who helped re-shape the world after constant rains started eroding geography. In what I assume (having read her debut Our Wives Under the Sea) is her signature style of beautiful prose, a focus on character study and water as a literary motif Armfield delicately handles themes such as estrangement, coping with grief and the complexity of family dynamics, especially between siblings.
As a background for her characters, who are all quite distanced, not very likable and really complex, the author chose an interesting setting – a quasi apocalyptic world about to go under water, about to drown. An apt analogy for the three sisters', or their whole family's, state, described in little interlude-chapters titled “City”.
The horror, the disturbing in this story is nothing explicit, it merely creeps in and out of the maybe a little monotonous story, but not being able to hide at the very harrowing ending, plops out of the water.
I can't say the ending makes up for the lengthy but gorgeous writing from the point of view of a horror enthusiast, it probably does not to the extend this was the case in her previous book, where the foreboding, the uncanny was much more present and resulted in a horrific explosion. This was similar but different. Still, for the reader who can put those expectations aside, a very worthwhile read nevertheless.
As a background for her characters, who are all quite distanced, not very likable and really complex, the author chose an interesting setting – a quasi apocalyptic world about to go under water, about to drown. An apt analogy for the three sisters', or their whole family's, state, described in little interlude-chapters titled “City”.
The horror, the disturbing in this story is nothing explicit, it merely creeps in and out of the maybe a little monotonous story, but not being able to hide at the very harrowing ending, plops out of the water.
I can't say the ending makes up for the lengthy but gorgeous writing from the point of view of a horror enthusiast, it probably does not to the extend this was the case in her previous book, where the foreboding, the uncanny was much more present and resulted in a horrific explosion. This was similar but different. Still, for the reader who can put those expectations aside, a very worthwhile read nevertheless.
Read
June 15, 2024Following the enormous success of her debut novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield's Private Rites is a more subtle and literary affair, yet one that is also far larger in scope. This is an apocalypse novel set in a Britain that has been flooded by rising sea levels and endless rainfall. Yet, unlike many apocalypse stories, this one depicts a slow, almost dull collapse, and there is something so chilling and bleak in that.
Capitalism remains; people still commute and work their day jobs, only they must do so with difficulty. Everything is too expensive now, and travel is almost impossible. Our protagonists are three queer sisters from a King Lear-inspired family. Their father—an architect who designed homes that can adapt to the changing climate—has died, and that death forces these near-estranged sisters back together.
Family drama meets apocalyptic tale, Private Rites is a deeply bleak tale that settles into your bones. Written with heft and poetic consideration, it is a novel that will surely be studied in the future.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/essential-lit...
Capitalism remains; people still commute and work their day jobs, only they must do so with difficulty. Everything is too expensive now, and travel is almost impossible. Our protagonists are three queer sisters from a King Lear-inspired family. Their father—an architect who designed homes that can adapt to the changing climate—has died, and that death forces these near-estranged sisters back together.
Family drama meets apocalyptic tale, Private Rites is a deeply bleak tale that settles into your bones. Written with heft and poetic consideration, it is a novel that will surely be studied in the future.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/essential-lit...
August 7, 2024
(Updating my rating to 5. I've been thinking about this book for days).
"It is an accepted belief that things fall apart. The question of whether or not the falling apart is necessary is separate and usually secondary. People still discuss this, of course: the fact of the turn, the moment a warning mutated into the only possible outcome."
Isla, Irene and Agnes Carmicheal are three somewhat estranged, or at least not close, sisters leading separate lives as adults in a dying city. All three are still holding onto old wounds and resentments inflicted during their childhoods under their cold and cruel father, a celebrated architect whose work helped the wealthy literally rise above a world reeling from environmental catastrophe. Upon the death of the Carmichael patriarch, the sisters are forced to face each other and finally confront old mysteries and traumas, as well as the crumbling reality of the world around them.
The dystopian elements are in evidence from the first pages of Private Rites but in the beginning, the unfolding family dynamics and the lives of the three Carmichael sisters seemed to take center stage. I think many people might say this isn't really a horror book. But as the story progresses, the literal end of the world as we know it moves to the forefront and becomes the central focus of the novel. Honestly, dystopian isn't a sub-genre of horror I generally like, but it really worked for me here and actually unsettled me because the end of times as Armfield presents it is so...familiar, certainly plausible. If we're being honest, actually probable and perhaps not too far away.
And the horror really picks up as the end of the book nears, particularly the final 30 pages or so. I found the ending very satisfying.
Armfield's writing, as usual, is exceptionally beautiful throughout this bleak book. Water seems to be her motif of choice, and I love it. Her characters are complex but also seem detached in a certain sense, in the case of Private Rites both from each other and the world around them. I think what will stay with me the most from this book, though, is the depiction of what remains of life in a crumbling society finally reckoning with its own demise. The book is told from the POVs of all three Carmichael sisters, but I think it is the sections related from the POV "City" that will stay with me the longest.
"Disaster movies, after all, come complete with pending resolution: the dash up the hill to avoid the falling rubble, the turning tide, the core of the slowing earth ignited at the cost of six courageous lives...The rescue is the point, or at least the idea that reversal is still imminent. There is little the imagination can do with an ending that is already assured."
Scary stuff, if you ask me.
"It is an accepted belief that things fall apart. The question of whether or not the falling apart is necessary is separate and usually secondary. People still discuss this, of course: the fact of the turn, the moment a warning mutated into the only possible outcome."
Isla, Irene and Agnes Carmicheal are three somewhat estranged, or at least not close, sisters leading separate lives as adults in a dying city. All three are still holding onto old wounds and resentments inflicted during their childhoods under their cold and cruel father, a celebrated architect whose work helped the wealthy literally rise above a world reeling from environmental catastrophe. Upon the death of the Carmichael patriarch, the sisters are forced to face each other and finally confront old mysteries and traumas, as well as the crumbling reality of the world around them.
The dystopian elements are in evidence from the first pages of Private Rites but in the beginning, the unfolding family dynamics and the lives of the three Carmichael sisters seemed to take center stage. I think many people might say this isn't really a horror book. But as the story progresses, the literal end of the world as we know it moves to the forefront and becomes the central focus of the novel. Honestly, dystopian isn't a sub-genre of horror I generally like, but it really worked for me here and actually unsettled me because the end of times as Armfield presents it is so...familiar, certainly plausible. If we're being honest, actually probable and perhaps not too far away.
And the horror really picks up as the end of the book nears, particularly the final 30 pages or so. I found the ending very satisfying.
Armfield's writing, as usual, is exceptionally beautiful throughout this bleak book. Water seems to be her motif of choice, and I love it. Her characters are complex but also seem detached in a certain sense, in the case of Private Rites both from each other and the world around them. I think what will stay with me the most from this book, though, is the depiction of what remains of life in a crumbling society finally reckoning with its own demise. The book is told from the POVs of all three Carmichael sisters, but I think it is the sections related from the POV "City" that will stay with me the longest.
"Disaster movies, after all, come complete with pending resolution: the dash up the hill to avoid the falling rubble, the turning tide, the core of the slowing earth ignited at the cost of six courageous lives...The rescue is the point, or at least the idea that reversal is still imminent. There is little the imagination can do with an ending that is already assured."
Scary stuff, if you ask me.
June 16, 2024
"Isla had picked at the cuticle of her thumb with her ring finger and nodded dumbly along with this, tried to remember the sequence of a poem she’d wanted to quote to a patient earlier in the week, about Old Masters and suffering: how it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. The point, of course, being the whole bright dailiness of agony, the way Icarus in the Bruegel painting could crash to earth as little but a background detail while the bland spool of life went on in the foreground; the ploughman at his plough and the fabric of the day untouched, uninterrupted."
Private Rites is, to me, a novel about the question of the everyday within the disastrous. That is, how do we continue to live our everyday lives while in the midst of an ongoing disaster? How can something that is catastrophic, life-altering on a global scale, become subsumed into, or sit alongside, everyday life?
Wherever you are in Private Rites, you are, just like the characters, forced to reckon with the inexorable, immovable, undeniable reality of its central disaster: it will not stop raining. There is rain everywhere, water everywhere, whole cities flooded, their infrastructure long gone. This is the world the characters of the novel must live in, and what makes the novel so compelling, I think, is that simple fact: that they need to continue to live in it, despite the fact that it is slowly becoming uninhabitable. I think sometimes the tendency with these dystopian settings is to Provide Commentary on a disaster, to explain it by pointing to any number of factors (Capitalism, Technology, Oligarchy, etc.), but it can be so much harder to just have your characters live in it, to suffer its daily degradations and deprivations--to experience, day by day, the gradual worsening of an already bad situation, and to have to live through it anyway, because what other choice is there? Despite everything, there is still an everyday to be gotten through: groceries, jobs, commutes, meals, family. (Though--and the novel is very aware of this--the characters are very privileged to even have this semblance of an everyday life.)
But as much as Private Rites is a climate disaster novel, it's also very much a family drama novel. We have three sisters--Isla, Irene, and Agnes--and an abusive father who, we find out on page one, has just died. From there, the sisters are forced to come together and reckon with how their father's abuse has affected--and continues to affect--not just their own selves, but also their fraught relationships with each other. There are, of course, the material realities of the novel's climate disaster, but I think water is, in a way, also an apt motif for a book whose characters have absorbed these ways of being from their childhoods--been steeped in that abuse such that now, as adults, its traumatic aftereffects seep into their adult lives and relationships. And seep they do: Armfield doesn't give us any big flashbacks to illuminate this past, but rather flashes of memory that constantly intrude on the sisters when they're alone and together. We don't get the full picture, but we get bits and pieces of it, and the effect is all the more powerful for this restraint.
Climate disaster + childhood trauma--Private Rites seems maybe like an unrelentingly bleak novel, but it's really not. It's not an upbeat novel by any means, but despite the bleak circumstances, it never feels one-note. The characters are fleshed out, shown to us in both their worst and most vulnerable moments; and even as the novel's climate disaster rages on, its characters still manage to have faith, even if just a little, in something--be it a person, a relationship, an act, a belief.
Private Rites is definitely (and unexpectedly) one of my favourite reads of the year, and such a different novel from Armfield's debut: longer, more ambitious, and, I think, ultimately more satisfying.
(thank you to 4th estate for the eARC!)
June 3, 2024
this was so no plot just vibes until the last like ??? CHAPTER ??? and then it was like surprise there was a secret plot and also this is an a24 film actually
Want to read
June 12, 2024
June 13, 2024
I adore Julia Armfield’s writing style and her writing was just as incredible in Private Rites. I enjoyed the reading experience and spending time with the characters, and I loved the ending. It has stuck with me.
However, I do feel the blurb miss-sells the book to be something a bit different to what it is. The unsettling vibes that Julia Armfield is an absolute master of, don’t really come into play until towards the end of the book and I was really hoping more of that would seep in throughout the entire story.
I would still 100% recommend Private Rites but just don’t expect the same vibe as our wives under the sea.
July 29, 2024
2.5. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this book.
This is the first book by Julia Armfield that I've read. I requested an ARC because of all the glowing pre reviews on Goodreads and everyone's excitement about this future release. However, it was not what I was expecting. Although this is a well written novel, it didn't entertain me.
This is the first book by Julia Armfield that I've read. I requested an ARC because of all the glowing pre reviews on Goodreads and everyone's excitement about this future release. However, it was not what I was expecting. Although this is a well written novel, it didn't entertain me.
June 28, 2024
I was so engrossed in the story of Private Rites that I read it in under 24 hours, barely pausing for breaks. I adored every single aspect of this book, and it pretty much immediately became a new favourite as soon as I finished! Although it is set against the backdrop of a climate catastrophe signalling the end of the world, the apocalyptic setting is diminished, becoming a mundane triviality rather than a disaster of utmost urgency, which I found to be a highly intriguing and unique twist on the dystopian and speculative genres. Instead, the conflict between the characters, three sisters navigating the death of their father amid a slow burning crisis, takes centre stage, and I utterly adored the explorations of grief, as well as the themes of queerness and desire that are interwoven throughout the narrative in such a detailed and nuanced way. Armfield excels at creating a melancholic tone through her vivid descriptions of the endless rain seeping through and pervading every aspect of life, conjuring an atmosphere of quiet but unsettling tragedy. Furthermore, I found her depictions of everyday life fascinating as, with the central three characters dealing with relationships colleagues, flatmates and family at work and home, she presents a world that, despite the vastly different situations, is not so different from our own.
I would highly recommend this book, and I would be very keen to read anything Julia Armfield writes in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the early review copy!
I would highly recommend this book, and I would be very keen to read anything Julia Armfield writes in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the early review copy!
April 23, 2024
Julia delivers once again!! With Private Rites, Julia explores the relationship between three sisters in a world ravaged by a climate catastrophe where it has rained for so long that some places have been lost and cities have retreated to higher storeys. The three estranged sisters are forced back together after their father died, reuniting to clear his grand glass house.
Once again, LOVED Julia’s use of water. In Private Rites it is literally pouring from the sky and it’s fascinating to learn about how society has learned to adjust to this new way of life. Her prose is beautiful as always, with such stunning descriptions and reflections on relationships, not only between the three sisters, but the relationships with others in their life.
I didn’t love it as much as Our Wives Under the Sea, mainly because the ending felt a little misplaced for me, but I might enjoy it more on a reread placing it into context. And now the wait begins for another Armfield…
Thank you to @4thestatebooks for the eARC!
4.5/5.
Once again, LOVED Julia’s use of water. In Private Rites it is literally pouring from the sky and it’s fascinating to learn about how society has learned to adjust to this new way of life. Her prose is beautiful as always, with such stunning descriptions and reflections on relationships, not only between the three sisters, but the relationships with others in their life.
I didn’t love it as much as Our Wives Under the Sea, mainly because the ending felt a little misplaced for me, but I might enjoy it more on a reread placing it into context. And now the wait begins for another Armfield…
Thank you to @4thestatebooks for the eARC!
4.5/5.
June 13, 2024
Dysfunctional sibling relationships residing in the messy liminal space of hate and love.
I loved Our Wives Under the Sea by this author so maybe my expectations for this new book of hers was too high, but anyways, Private Rites follows three sisters in the panopticon of an eroding, dystopian-esque environment. Society and the climate is at the precipice of decay, though most of its denizens seem to be in denial. The sisters have a stale relationship which has to be awkwardly confronted after their father’s death, bringing them to his house (which emanates unease). Familial dysfunction and navigating the dynamic complexity of relationships is at the forefront of this novel.
There’s a sense of urgency about the climate and the restless discomfort of capitalist existence that the melancholic, melodious fervour of Armfield’s writing reflects really well. There was depth in the sisters’ interactions, but the sisters individually didn’t feel well-rounded to me in their POVs.
The story lacked forward momentum for me, because I was somehow bereft of the desire to unveil the layers of this dysfunctional familial dynamic even though that should have been intriguing in theory. The themes around sisterhood and maladjusted families are not ones I personally care for, so those who love exploring complex family dynamics in its entire messy breadth would probably have a blast with this.
The pacing was somewhat uneven with buildup to the ending that seemed staccato, which felt like a wall between my ability to feel fully immersed in the rhythm of Armfield’s writing.
So this was a miss for me, but I’d happily recommend this to those who love exploring messy family dynamics (particularly those between siblings), well-rounded queer representation, and eerie atmospheres that have a sense of malaise.
Rating: 2 stars
I loved Our Wives Under the Sea by this author so maybe my expectations for this new book of hers was too high, but anyways, Private Rites follows three sisters in the panopticon of an eroding, dystopian-esque environment. Society and the climate is at the precipice of decay, though most of its denizens seem to be in denial. The sisters have a stale relationship which has to be awkwardly confronted after their father’s death, bringing them to his house (which emanates unease). Familial dysfunction and navigating the dynamic complexity of relationships is at the forefront of this novel.
There’s a sense of urgency about the climate and the restless discomfort of capitalist existence that the melancholic, melodious fervour of Armfield’s writing reflects really well. There was depth in the sisters’ interactions, but the sisters individually didn’t feel well-rounded to me in their POVs.
The story lacked forward momentum for me, because I was somehow bereft of the desire to unveil the layers of this dysfunctional familial dynamic even though that should have been intriguing in theory. The themes around sisterhood and maladjusted families are not ones I personally care for, so those who love exploring complex family dynamics in its entire messy breadth would probably have a blast with this.
The pacing was somewhat uneven with buildup to the ending that seemed staccato, which felt like a wall between my ability to feel fully immersed in the rhythm of Armfield’s writing.
So this was a miss for me, but I’d happily recommend this to those who love exploring messy family dynamics (particularly those between siblings), well-rounded queer representation, and eerie atmospheres that have a sense of malaise.
Rating: 2 stars
June 24, 2024
“Any horror story could be said to work in two pieces: the fear of being wholly alone and of realizing that one has company.“
julia armfield has DONE IT AGAIN!
i’m sure that no one is surprised that i loved, cherished, and devoured julia armfield’s third novel, PRIVATE RITES. i’ve been vocal about my love for OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA and SALT SLOW since i read them both a while back, and when an advanced copy of PRIVATE RITES arrived on my doorstep i dropped everything to pick it up.
this queer King Lear retelling is a slow, obliterating wave. following three sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes (self-described as “King Lear’s dyke daughters”) in the wake of their father’s death, the novel explores their relationships as siblings, partners, and children in the wake of a quickly dissolving world drowning under the weight of never ending rain. the women are flawed and mean and selfish. they’re loving and careful and pensive. they’re cruel and soft when it matters, and they’re sisters even when the word seems to mean nothing.
armfield’s gorgeous prose fed me until i was full of it (just as it always does!) and left me wanting to sleep with the book beneath my pillow in hopes of taking it some of it’s beauty. there are many horrors in PRIVATES RITES—ecological and familial and spectral—but there is also love on every page, even when it comes with hurt. i loved it just as much as i hoped i would, and i’ll be chewing on that ending for years to come!
thank you so much to Flatiron Books for the gifted copy!
julia armfield has DONE IT AGAIN!
i’m sure that no one is surprised that i loved, cherished, and devoured julia armfield’s third novel, PRIVATE RITES. i’ve been vocal about my love for OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA and SALT SLOW since i read them both a while back, and when an advanced copy of PRIVATE RITES arrived on my doorstep i dropped everything to pick it up.
this queer King Lear retelling is a slow, obliterating wave. following three sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes (self-described as “King Lear’s dyke daughters”) in the wake of their father’s death, the novel explores their relationships as siblings, partners, and children in the wake of a quickly dissolving world drowning under the weight of never ending rain. the women are flawed and mean and selfish. they’re loving and careful and pensive. they’re cruel and soft when it matters, and they’re sisters even when the word seems to mean nothing.
armfield’s gorgeous prose fed me until i was full of it (just as it always does!) and left me wanting to sleep with the book beneath my pillow in hopes of taking it some of it’s beauty. there are many horrors in PRIVATES RITES—ecological and familial and spectral—but there is also love on every page, even when it comes with hurt. i loved it just as much as i hoped i would, and i’ll be chewing on that ending for years to come!
thank you so much to Flatiron Books for the gifted copy!
April 18, 2024
5 million stars PHENOMENAL
June 20, 2024
stunning. chilling. brutal. tender.
julia armfield is doing it like no one else is.
julia armfield is doing it like no one else is.
June 23, 2024
*edited with review*
3.75.
Hmmm, this one’s quite a complicated one! I absolutely, as I expected, loved the writing, I’ve tabbed up my copy completely. This did not disappoint and was a lot like Our Wives with its beautiful prose.
I loved that the impending apocalypse was unique and not the forefront of this story, it made it all the more interesting of a concept for me. The sibling dynamics were well explored, I am an only child so can only assume it’s written accurately😅. My favourite sibling was, of course, Agnes! I loved her development.
The City having its own perspective really added to the story, having short sentences about others living through this apocalypse and their ways of coping made it feel all the more authentic.
The thing that made it feel not as strong as Our Wives for me personally was the pacing, half way in and the story hadn’t developed too much since the beginning. This is all well and good when you can write like Armfield can of course so i continued on. The ending… it came out of left field and really really confused me, I am just going to kind of… pretend it didn’t happen? Regardless this book is still a 4 star rounded up for me because the writing was amazing and I had a good time. Looking forward to future works!
*added 7 months previous to my review*.
Give us another beautiful book cover Julia 🙏🏼
3.75.
Hmmm, this one’s quite a complicated one! I absolutely, as I expected, loved the writing, I’ve tabbed up my copy completely. This did not disappoint and was a lot like Our Wives with its beautiful prose.
I loved that the impending apocalypse was unique and not the forefront of this story, it made it all the more interesting of a concept for me. The sibling dynamics were well explored, I am an only child so can only assume it’s written accurately😅. My favourite sibling was, of course, Agnes! I loved her development.
The City having its own perspective really added to the story, having short sentences about others living through this apocalypse and their ways of coping made it feel all the more authentic.
The thing that made it feel not as strong as Our Wives for me personally was the pacing, half way in and the story hadn’t developed too much since the beginning. This is all well and good when you can write like Armfield can of course so i continued on. The ending… it came out of left field and really really confused me, I am just going to kind of… pretend it didn’t happen? Regardless this book is still a 4 star rounded up for me because the writing was amazing and I had a good time. Looking forward to future works!
*added 7 months previous to my review*.
Give us another beautiful book cover Julia 🙏🏼
September 3, 2024
I don't quite now how to review this book or what words to use. But it's definitely a 4 star read.
September 2, 2024
The more time has passed and the lively discussion from the always brilliant and insightful s.penkevich (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6...) and BJ (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5...), the more I feel like I need to return to this in text and really soak it in, especially as I'm aware I was, somewhat appropriately roaming around Liurnia of the Lakes and the sunken remains of the academy town in Elden Ring while listening to the audiobook.
I have also had time to reflect that there are a couple of factors that impacted my experience of this book. The first being that I made a silly assumption based on the prologue, much as I did with the blurb of Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which set me up with expectations of what the novel would be, which didn't lay the best foundation for my reading. With Station Eleven it was assuming the book was going to be about the Shakespearean troupe travelling the apocalypse performing Shakespeare, because that's what the bloody blurb said, when that is an element, but such a small, almost insignificant element in the grand scheme of that novel, and with Private Rites I thought the supernatural elements and culty, nightmare family stuff were going to play a far bigger role in the story than they ultimately do, at least within the main bulk of the story.
Another factor that absolutely effected my enjoyment of this novel compared to Out Wives Under the Sea is my relationship or lack thereof with my family. I talked more about the emotional abuse and neglect I grew up with that left me with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in my review of the exquisite and extreme Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, but it's very much a thing that made this novel more difficult for me. I am largely estranged from my family these days, especially after discovering by accident through my auntie, a fellow Queer Outcast and my last real connection, that I was now 2/2 in not being invited or informed about my sisters getting married not long after finishing this book. Big Agnes energy right here, but I am also lucky enough to have my very own Jude, so life is not all bad.
All of this to say I really need to revisit this and, quite frankly, Our Wives Under the Sea, because I adored them both so very much, but I think I need to engage with them more deeply and on their own terms without my preconceptions and being more aware of my own baggage.
I also think I might need to take in a viewing of King Lear before hand as I did not really read Lear into this and it is a play I do so love with the Fool being one of my favourite dramatic characters of all time.
Apologies, this was very self-indulgent and not much of a review, but the book is exquisite and your should read it!
***
Reminding myself I need to review this properly
I loved this so much and I can't believe there is currently only one more Armfield book left for me to read! I will save a savour it.
This really wasn't what I was expecting at first, but nonetheless I adored it. Proper review soon.
I have also had time to reflect that there are a couple of factors that impacted my experience of this book. The first being that I made a silly assumption based on the prologue, much as I did with the blurb of Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which set me up with expectations of what the novel would be, which didn't lay the best foundation for my reading. With Station Eleven it was assuming the book was going to be about the Shakespearean troupe travelling the apocalypse performing Shakespeare, because that's what the bloody blurb said, when that is an element, but such a small, almost insignificant element in the grand scheme of that novel, and with Private Rites I thought the supernatural elements and culty, nightmare family stuff were going to play a far bigger role in the story than they ultimately do, at least within the main bulk of the story.
Another factor that absolutely effected my enjoyment of this novel compared to Out Wives Under the Sea is my relationship or lack thereof with my family. I talked more about the emotional abuse and neglect I grew up with that left me with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in my review of the exquisite and extreme Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, but it's very much a thing that made this novel more difficult for me. I am largely estranged from my family these days, especially after discovering by accident through my auntie, a fellow Queer Outcast and my last real connection, that I was now 2/2 in not being invited or informed about my sisters getting married not long after finishing this book. Big Agnes energy right here, but I am also lucky enough to have my very own Jude, so life is not all bad.
All of this to say I really need to revisit this and, quite frankly, Our Wives Under the Sea, because I adored them both so very much, but I think I need to engage with them more deeply and on their own terms without my preconceptions and being more aware of my own baggage.
I also think I might need to take in a viewing of King Lear before hand as I did not really read Lear into this and it is a play I do so love with the Fool being one of my favourite dramatic characters of all time.
Apologies, this was very self-indulgent and not much of a review, but the book is exquisite and your should read it!
***
Reminding myself I need to review this properly
I loved this so much and I can't believe there is currently only one more Armfield book left for me to read! I will save a savour it.
This really wasn't what I was expecting at first, but nonetheless I adored it. Proper review soon.
May 13, 2024
4.5/5
PRIVATE RITES is Julia Armfield's exploration of the end of the world lived in the mundane; Armfield's apocalypse if very much not a bang, but a whimper, a pot left simmering as you remain unsure of when it'll come to a boil. She interrogates the limits of what people will get used to, and put up with, and the way The End Of Days™ can come across as a series of end of days as we knew them. A series of changes of circumstances, of quiet tragedies that ring all too familiar to the now, and so the reader can easily see them transposed onto the slightly dystopian scene without needing any significant suspension of disbelief on their part. There are sequences that ring particularly true in the wake of a post 2020 world, so much so that they had me reread them to myself time and time again in a quick succession, then reading them out loud to my friend as we waited to board our plane. The brief interlude chapters from the city breaking up our three protagonists' POVs are lyrical and fuzzy in a late-night dreamlike kind of way.
When it comes to the three characters, I found it difficult to pick favourites, and found myself swayed each time we met or came back to another sisters' perspective. Where Armfield excels in many ways is in her deep understanding of and compassion for the human experience; her ability to dig to the heart and guts of things, and deliver characters that are messy, and honest (or as honest to you as they are to themselves) and raw. The honesty of each character rang true to my bones. I knew these women. If I looked just right, I could see facets of myself reflected in these women. It is this tender, yet brutal authenticity that makes it so easy to dive fully into their stories, to believe each of their thought processes, to live each of their quiet devastations with them, to spiral or float alongside depending on the tide.
It's not often that a reader is willing to abandon questions of action, plot or world (especially with a book that invites so many) in favour of merely following along with the characters and sinking into the whirlpool of their thoughts, but it takes little effort to do so with PRIVATE RITES. If possible, I think this'd make for a stellar reading experience if consumed in one go, yet it loses none of its appeal or bite when read in small chunks of time stolen here and there as was my case. I'm already dying to get a physical copies into my hands and annotate it to no end.
PRIVATE RITES is Julia Armfield's exploration of the end of the world lived in the mundane; Armfield's apocalypse if very much not a bang, but a whimper, a pot left simmering as you remain unsure of when it'll come to a boil. She interrogates the limits of what people will get used to, and put up with, and the way The End Of Days™ can come across as a series of end of days as we knew them. A series of changes of circumstances, of quiet tragedies that ring all too familiar to the now, and so the reader can easily see them transposed onto the slightly dystopian scene without needing any significant suspension of disbelief on their part. There are sequences that ring particularly true in the wake of a post 2020 world, so much so that they had me reread them to myself time and time again in a quick succession, then reading them out loud to my friend as we waited to board our plane. The brief interlude chapters from the city breaking up our three protagonists' POVs are lyrical and fuzzy in a late-night dreamlike kind of way.
When it comes to the three characters, I found it difficult to pick favourites, and found myself swayed each time we met or came back to another sisters' perspective. Where Armfield excels in many ways is in her deep understanding of and compassion for the human experience; her ability to dig to the heart and guts of things, and deliver characters that are messy, and honest (or as honest to you as they are to themselves) and raw. The honesty of each character rang true to my bones. I knew these women. If I looked just right, I could see facets of myself reflected in these women. It is this tender, yet brutal authenticity that makes it so easy to dive fully into their stories, to believe each of their thought processes, to live each of their quiet devastations with them, to spiral or float alongside depending on the tide.
It's not often that a reader is willing to abandon questions of action, plot or world (especially with a book that invites so many) in favour of merely following along with the characters and sinking into the whirlpool of their thoughts, but it takes little effort to do so with PRIVATE RITES. If possible, I think this'd make for a stellar reading experience if consumed in one go, yet it loses none of its appeal or bite when read in small chunks of time stolen here and there as was my case. I'm already dying to get a physical copies into my hands and annotate it to no end.
July 15, 2024
Well, this was definitely not as great as Our Wives Under the Sea. To be fair, I really loved Julia Armfield's previous novel. So much so that when I saw this as an ARC, I checked my email constantly to see if I got it or not.
Armfield clearly loves water to a degree that I didn't think was possible. This novel follows the strained relationship of three sisters dealing with the death of their wealthy father during a dystopian future where it never stops raining. The chapters go back and forth between sisters and what is happening in the flooded city. I've never read about a future where water is ever present, so this was a nice change of pace.
Private Rites is classified as horror. Horror seems like a bit of a stretch. It was a bit spooky, especially if you, like me, are sadly moving through life with the looming threat of climate change ever present (113 degrees in California tomorrow).
Having multiple character point of views is a little jolting at times, but it does allow for some nice character development. I love how all sisters were in queer relationships - like, yes, thank you for this. As mentioned in the book, there are several families where all siblings are hetero and no one bats an eye. However, I do NOT appreciate the amount of times I read the word "tits" - it's one of the few words I loathe. It's my "moist".
All in all, I liked this. I had a good time. It just wasn't as beautifully done as her previous work. Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the ARC!
Armfield clearly loves water to a degree that I didn't think was possible. This novel follows the strained relationship of three sisters dealing with the death of their wealthy father during a dystopian future where it never stops raining. The chapters go back and forth between sisters and what is happening in the flooded city. I've never read about a future where water is ever present, so this was a nice change of pace.
Private Rites is classified as horror. Horror seems like a bit of a stretch. It was a bit spooky, especially if you, like me, are sadly moving through life with the looming threat of climate change ever present (113 degrees in California tomorrow).
Having multiple character point of views is a little jolting at times, but it does allow for some nice character development. I love how all sisters were in queer relationships - like, yes, thank you for this. As mentioned in the book, there are several families where all siblings are hetero and no one bats an eye. However, I do NOT appreciate the amount of times I read the word "tits" - it's one of the few words I loathe. It's my "moist".
All in all, I liked this. I had a good time. It just wasn't as beautifully done as her previous work. Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the ARC!
Read
April 30, 2024DNF @ 40%. sorry but she’s just not for me. if you liked Our Wives Under the Sea you’ll probably love this, it’s also full of water and vaguely miserable and unlikable queer women.
June 15, 2024
Julia, you've done it again. 5/5 stars... Standing ovation.
Full review to come once my brain has become unscrambled.
Full review to come once my brain has become unscrambled.
July 8, 2024
Whereas “Our Wives Under the Sea” was about a woman whose wife returned from an actual oceanic expedition and wasn’t the same, “Private Rites” takes place in a modern society in which the rain almost never stops, and it has been raining for so long in fact that some places now use water taxis for transportation. And the dreary situation is just getting worse.
A good book to read when you’re already sad, it’s about grieving a loss, trying to sort out your own memories, and working your way through very complicated familial feelings. Love and hostility, often at the same time, and an eerie and drowning world. Aside from the death of the father figure early on, I had no idea where this story was going to go. And if you had given me a bunch of guesses as to the ending, I would have been wrong every time.
We mostly alternate from the three perspectives of the late father’s three adult daughters: Isla, Irene and Agnes. I had a little bit of trouble separating the sisters for much of the book and the switching POVs didn’t help as much as they should have. The three main characters are very similar, they all hate each other, and honestly I didn’t really like any of them either. (Though I probably came closest to liking or at least understanding Isla.) The most interesting thing to me were the short chapters that gave me the POV of the “City,” and essentially told me more about the state of this world and endless rain.
The most intriguing part of this novel is the little glimpses of darkness that we are given here and there throughout the narrative. Seemingly random, haunting and disturbing moments. I wanted more of those, though what we’re given is effective, and turned out to serve a purpose. When I reached the ending I realized that I had actually been reading a horror story this entire time, disguised as Literary Fiction. (Though perhaps maybe TOO thoroughly disguised?) I feel like readers seeking horror may be a bit bored by this and those reading it for its gorgeous prose and character study may find the abrupt tonal changes confusing.
There’s no debate that Armfield has a way with language. She writes beautifully. That was my favorite part of the book. The central plot is one in which not a whole lot actually happens, but it’s the way in which the story is told, the layers of tragedy and darkness and the gorgeous prose, that make this a worthwhile read. It’s like when you watch a film that won a bunch of awards and you say, “I wasn’t that invested in the story, but holy shit, that cinematography. And those performances!”
The ending is WILD and although there are indeed hints leading up to it throughout the whole book, it still feels like what happens comes out of nowhere. Without saying anything specific or spoilery, I don’t really think it worked for me but it was interesting. It just felt like a whole different genre stitched on right at the very end. There’s a fine line between too much explanation and not enough, and in this case I needed a bit more.
I’m sure there are still other things going on that I didn’t fully pick up on. Sometimes when I’m reading I wonder, “Is this a theme the author is exploring or did I just relate to a specific part of the book?” This is a strange read, for sure. Even if I wasn’t in love with it the way I was with “Our Wives Under the Sea,” I am still in awe of Armfield’s writing ability and the effortlessness of her language.
3.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
TW: Chronic Illness, Suicide, Domestic Abuse, Alcohol Abuse
A good book to read when you’re already sad, it’s about grieving a loss, trying to sort out your own memories, and working your way through very complicated familial feelings. Love and hostility, often at the same time, and an eerie and drowning world. Aside from the death of the father figure early on, I had no idea where this story was going to go. And if you had given me a bunch of guesses as to the ending, I would have been wrong every time.
We mostly alternate from the three perspectives of the late father’s three adult daughters: Isla, Irene and Agnes. I had a little bit of trouble separating the sisters for much of the book and the switching POVs didn’t help as much as they should have. The three main characters are very similar, they all hate each other, and honestly I didn’t really like any of them either. (Though I probably came closest to liking or at least understanding Isla.) The most interesting thing to me were the short chapters that gave me the POV of the “City,” and essentially told me more about the state of this world and endless rain.
The most intriguing part of this novel is the little glimpses of darkness that we are given here and there throughout the narrative. Seemingly random, haunting and disturbing moments. I wanted more of those, though what we’re given is effective, and turned out to serve a purpose. When I reached the ending I realized that I had actually been reading a horror story this entire time, disguised as Literary Fiction. (Though perhaps maybe TOO thoroughly disguised?) I feel like readers seeking horror may be a bit bored by this and those reading it for its gorgeous prose and character study may find the abrupt tonal changes confusing.
There’s no debate that Armfield has a way with language. She writes beautifully. That was my favorite part of the book. The central plot is one in which not a whole lot actually happens, but it’s the way in which the story is told, the layers of tragedy and darkness and the gorgeous prose, that make this a worthwhile read. It’s like when you watch a film that won a bunch of awards and you say, “I wasn’t that invested in the story, but holy shit, that cinematography. And those performances!”
The ending is WILD and although there are indeed hints leading up to it throughout the whole book, it still feels like what happens comes out of nowhere. Without saying anything specific or spoilery, I don’t really think it worked for me but it was interesting. It just felt like a whole different genre stitched on right at the very end. There’s a fine line between too much explanation and not enough, and in this case I needed a bit more.
I’m sure there are still other things going on that I didn’t fully pick up on. Sometimes when I’m reading I wonder, “Is this a theme the author is exploring or did I just relate to a specific part of the book?” This is a strange read, for sure. Even if I wasn’t in love with it the way I was with “Our Wives Under the Sea,” I am still in awe of Armfield’s writing ability and the effortlessness of her language.
3.5 stars rounded up.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
TW: Chronic Illness, Suicide, Domestic Abuse, Alcohol Abuse
July 3, 2024
A King Lear retelling with three sisters, the end of the world, and a watery dystopia.
Isla, Irene, and Agnes are three sisters who are estranged, brought together where their father dies, famous for being an architect for making the new world navigable.
A world being submerged by water as it never stops raining.
The environment and the end of the world isn’t the focus (which seems crazy with such a cool premise), rather the relationships between the three queer, volatile sisters. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve their father when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.
Not to mention, they all seem to have either mummy or daddy issues and an undercurrent of competitiveness, miscommunication, and pettiness brought forward from childhood.
Isla…. tried to remember the sequence of a poem she’d wanted to quote to a patient earlier in the week, about Old Masters and suffering: how it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. The point, of course, being the whole bright dailiness of agony, the way Icarus in the Bruegel painting could crash to earth as little but a background detail while the bland spool of life went on in the foreground; the ploughman at his plough and the fabric of the day untouched, uninterrupted."
I am an older sister with two younger brothers and the snapping and automatic japes had me examining my own relationship with my brothers, seeing my own interactions in the siblings.
The two oldest, Isla and Irene, try to come together, only to slip into habitual competitiveness. On the other hand, Agnes is the youngest by eleven years and this age gap is keenly felt and hard to breach.
”It is,” Isla finds, “just so easy to allow herself the fun of resenting Agnes, as easy as it was when they were kids.”
I would have loved more on the rainy city, where people live makeshift lives on the top floors of flooded tower blocks, travelling by ferry. Yet, I know this isn’t Armfield’s purpose.
Just like Our Wives under the Sea, this is a slow moving, intimate look at our connections with those closest to us. The push and pull.
The first half was definitely better than the second half. Then it just felt repetitive and self-indulgent in pity, shame, revulsion, and frustration.
Maybe if you like books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, you might enjoy it more.
And the ending was just such a let down. I think I kind of expected it, but it felt like a cheat, a cop out.
Again, this is written for certain people and I kind of guessed before even picking it up it wouldn’t be me.
Bookstagram
Isla, Irene, and Agnes are three sisters who are estranged, brought together where their father dies, famous for being an architect for making the new world navigable.
A world being submerged by water as it never stops raining.
The environment and the end of the world isn’t the focus (which seems crazy with such a cool premise), rather the relationships between the three queer, volatile sisters. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve their father when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.
Not to mention, they all seem to have either mummy or daddy issues and an undercurrent of competitiveness, miscommunication, and pettiness brought forward from childhood.
Isla…. tried to remember the sequence of a poem she’d wanted to quote to a patient earlier in the week, about Old Masters and suffering: how it takes place while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. The point, of course, being the whole bright dailiness of agony, the way Icarus in the Bruegel painting could crash to earth as little but a background detail while the bland spool of life went on in the foreground; the ploughman at his plough and the fabric of the day untouched, uninterrupted."
I am an older sister with two younger brothers and the snapping and automatic japes had me examining my own relationship with my brothers, seeing my own interactions in the siblings.
The two oldest, Isla and Irene, try to come together, only to slip into habitual competitiveness. On the other hand, Agnes is the youngest by eleven years and this age gap is keenly felt and hard to breach.
”It is,” Isla finds, “just so easy to allow herself the fun of resenting Agnes, as easy as it was when they were kids.”
I would have loved more on the rainy city, where people live makeshift lives on the top floors of flooded tower blocks, travelling by ferry. Yet, I know this isn’t Armfield’s purpose.
Just like Our Wives under the Sea, this is a slow moving, intimate look at our connections with those closest to us. The push and pull.
The first half was definitely better than the second half. Then it just felt repetitive and self-indulgent in pity, shame, revulsion, and frustration.
Maybe if you like books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, you might enjoy it more.
And the ending was just such a let down. I think I kind of expected it, but it felt like a cheat, a cop out.
Again, this is written for certain people and I kind of guessed before even picking it up it wouldn’t be me.
Bookstagram
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