Title: Hold Back the Night

Author: Jessica Moor

Genre: Literary Fiction

Publisher: Manilla Press

Publication Date: 9th May 2024

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Book Summary:

From the Observer debut novelist of the year, comes a blistering, heart-wrenching new novel of complicity and atonement, delving into one nurse’s experience of the little-known history of conversion therapy and the heart-breaking betrayal of the AIDS crisis.

March 2020. Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for company. But then she receives a phone call which plunges her deeper into the past.

1959. Annie and Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Working long, gruelling hours, they soon learn that the only way to appease their terrifying matron is to follow the rules unthinkingly. But what is happening in the hospital’s hidden side wards? And at what point does following the rules turn into complicity – and betrayal?

1983. Annie is reeling from the loss of her husband and struggling to face raising her daughter alone. Following a chance encounter, she offers a sick young man a bed for the night, a good deed that soon leads to another. Before long, she finds herself entering a new life of service – her home a haven for those who are cruelly shunned. But can we ever really atone?

Review:

I loved both of Moor’s previous books, Keeper and Young Women, so it is seriously high praise to say that, for me, Hold Back the Night is her best yet. It is an exceptional read, told with elegance, nuance and an admirable subtlety. The narrative is split across three timelines: 1959, the 1980’s and 2020. This could have felt convoluted, yet it is pitched and paced perfectly, each section distinct but connected by main character, Annie, who is haunted by her past actions and her complicity in something unthinkably cruel.

Hold Back the Night covers some harrowing subjects, including the devastating loss and injustice present during the AIDS crisis. However, it is not an unrelentingly depressing read. There is, of course, sadness and anger but there is also hope to be found. This is a book that shows the complexities and the power of love in all its forms – friendship, companionship, family, desire and humanity. It is about redemption, complicity, guilt, compassion and the responsibility humans have to one another. A beautifully written, truly heartbreaking yet somehow still delicately hopeful book that I could not recommend more highly.

★★★★★

Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for my place on this tour and for the copy of the book. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

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