The Tidal Zone - Sarah Moss [Review]

The Tidal Zone centres around a single life changing event, the moment 15-year-old Miriam stops breathing at her school in Coventry. She survives, and the entire episode, before and after this event, is told from the perspective of Adam Goldschmidt, a stay-at-home father.

Moss near perfectly encapsulates what a life changing event like this can do to the very fabric of your being. I can profess that it is always on your mind, every day you discover the new ways in which it has changed your life indefinitely. Everyday mundane things become a trigger; you become scared of the phone ringing; you start every conversation with the reassurance that everything is okay.

In this regard, then, his inner monologue is realistic, and I was particularly impressed by Moss’ ability to write from a male perspective so consistently. I enjoyed the first-person perspective (which I know others didn’t), and that we never really knew what anyone was thinking or feeling, only what Adam thinks they are. He conducts entire conversations in his head. The limited capacity of his mind is now constantly consumed by dark thoughts and the imagined death of his daughter, and all of this is being contested by the mundanity of cooking dinner and having the uniforms ironed (I’m slightly annoyed that mundanity is correct and mundanaity isn’t).

There is a bit of self-flagellation, and though the family appear to be politically conscious they are not particularly self-aware and there is a lot of middle-class privilege and self-righteousness on display; from middle-class guilt to comments about the NHS and unneeded insights into the working class, to Miriam’s aggressive performative progressiveness (a 15-year-old who reads more like an idealistic undergraduate). There is a point where constantly professing how privileged you are goes from self-aware to just flaunting your privilege. It all felt a tad out of touch (and the reversed gender roles didn’t do much for me either). 

My only other big criticism is just one of preference. While at times I was engrossed (there’s an incident that happens about 3/4 in that literally made me gasp out loud on the train), there were times I never felt in the story; it was like Moss was describing a dream or memory. It’s the same sensation as someone relaying a sporting event or movie scene to you; you can follow but you’re not exactly immersed. This didn’t totally take away from the experience, but it was unexpected.

Occasionally Adam’s tangents were tedious and hard to follow. I can imagine someone listening to the audiobook and having to constantly rewind, wondering what exactly this is about and how it’s related to the core story. Some anecdotes appear more immediately relevant than others, and sometimes I found myself having to wait for last line of the chapter to see the correlation.

Ultimately after halfway the story doesn’t really go anywhere; from here on in we are primarily concerned with the characters and in general I don’t mind that — if that is your thing then you’ll enjoy this, but if you’re more interested in the events then you’ll defiantly be left wanting more.The Tidal Zone centres around a single life changing event, the moment 15-year-old Miriam stops breathing at her school in Coventry. She survives, and the entire episode, before and after this event, is told from the perspective of Adam Goldschmidt, a stay-at-home father.

Moss near perfectly encapsulates what a life changing event like this can do to the very fabric of your being. I can profess that it is always on your mind, every day you discover the new ways in which it has changed your life indefinitely. Everyday mundane things become a trigger; you become scared of the phone ringing; you start every conversation with the reassurance that everything is okay.

In this regard, then, his inner monologue is realistic, and I was particularly impressed by Moss’ ability to write from a male perspective so consistently. I enjoyed the first-person perspective (which I know others didn’t), and that we never really knew what anyone was thinking or feeling, only what Adam thinks they are. He conducts entire conversations in his head. The limited capacity of his mind is now constantly consumed by dark thoughts and the imagined death of his daughter, and all of this is being contested by the mundanity of cooking dinner and having the uniforms ironed (I’m slightly annoyed that mundanity is correct and mundanaity isn’t).

There is a bit of self-flagellation, and though the family appear to be politically conscious they are not particularly self-aware and there is a lot of middle-class privilege and self-righteousness on display; from middle-class guilt to comments about the NHS and unneeded insights into the working class, to Miriam’s aggressive performative progressiveness (a 15-year-old who reads more like an idealistic undergraduate). There is a point where constantly professing how privileged you are goes from self-aware to just flaunting your privilege. It all felt a tad out of touch (and the reversed gender roles didn’t do much for me either). 

My only other big criticism is just one of preference. While at times I was engrossed (there’s an incident that happens about 3/4 in that literally made me gasp out loud on the train), there were times I never felt in the story; it was like Moss was describing a dream or memory. It’s the same sensation as someone relaying a sporting event or movie scene to you; you can follow but you’re not exactly immersed. This didn’t totally take away from the experience, but it was unexpected.

Occasionally Adam’s tangents were tedious and hard to follow. I can imagine someone listening to the audiobook and having to constantly rewind, wondering what exactly this is about and how it’s related to the core story. Some anecdotes appear more immediately relevant than others, and sometimes I found myself having to wait for last line of the chapter to see the correlation.

Ultimately after halfway the story doesn’t really go anywhere; from here on in we are primarily concerned with the characters and in general I don’t mind that — if that is your thing then you’ll enjoy this, but if you’re more interested in the events then you’ll defiantly be left wanting more.