“Beautiful places are screwed by tourism,” says Greengrass.Īt the house, Caro and Pauly meet Sally and her ailing grandfather.

It sits above a former fishing village which is now a tourist resort awash with holiday lets and second homes.

It comes from the idea that we’ve conquered the natural environment, but that is being eroded by rising sea levels.”Īs towns are submerged and people are forced from their homes, Caro and Pauly set out for the High House, which Caro’s stepmother – a famous environmentalist – had been secretly preparing when disaster struck. “Reading about it showed me that our sense of safety is recent and fragile. “I became interested in the devastating North Sea flood of 1953, which has largely been forgotten,” says Greengrass. That’s what she has delivered with The High House, which begins in a world on the edge of environmental catastrophe, as the teenaged Caro and her younger brother Pauly leave their city following the disappearance of their parents. “I wanted to write more of a novelly novel.”īy “novelly novel” – a phrase borrowed from the sui generis writer Geoff Dyer – Greengrass means one with a strong plot and characters who bear no direct resemblance to their author. “I felt strongly that I couldn’t do the same thing again,” says the 39-year-old over Zoom from Berwick-upon-Tweed, where she lives with her partner and two children. Her second, The High House, is a departure in style and subject matter, but will delight readers who relish the ambition and originality of her work, and leave them pondering its ideas about climate change, family, inequality and the ethical dilemmas that are posed by a crisis. Jessie Greengrass’s debut novel Sight was a genre-crossing blend of autoficton, essay and meditations on motherhood that won her both a passionate readership and a place on the shortlist for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Sight by jessie greengrass