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?
It is my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for Hold Back the Night today. Many thanks to Jessica Moor, Manilla Press and Tracy Fenton from Compulsive Readers for inviting me and for sending me a copy of the novel.
Hold Back the Night is not a particularly long novel but is so richly crafted that this moving, decades-spanning book captivated me throughout and I read it in a day. It follows Annie at three key times in her life, in 2020, 1983 and 1959, The chapters set in 2020 are the only parts of the book told in the first person, and as Annie receives the news that her friend has died, she inevitably looks back on her past and how it shaped her.
In 1959, she arrives at Fairlie Hall mental hospital, where she soon befriends her fellow student nurse, Rita. Despite having always felt an urge to ' smooth things out – to make clean what is dirty and to sew up what gapes open ', an unsettling encounter as a youngster has left her with a fear of blood. She decides to work with mental patients rather than in general nursing but the geriatric, frequently uninhibited patients and the stern, reproachful Matron proves to be a shock and both young women are quickly overwhelmed. However, they are also called upon to assist with two younger male patients, and the timid, compliant Annie becomes a part of what we can now acknowledge was a desperately cruel and misguided period of medical and social history. At this time, homosexuality was still illegal and conversion therapies were either offered as an alternative to prison, or men who felt shunned and ashamed opted for these extreme, dehumanising and undignified treatments.
In 1983, Annie has recently been widowed and left to raise her daughter, Rosie alone. Rosie is in hospital, recovering from a sudden illness which required surgery and in the waiting room, Annie can't fail to notice the vast chasm between her interactions with the nurses and that of a painfully thin young man. Later that night, she overhears a group of men discussing their clearly ill friend, Robbie and almost without thinking, offers him a room in her house. She needs a lodger and he needs somewhere to stay, so it makes sense – but of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we are already aware just how devastating the AIDS crisis will become. Robbie's lover, Jim becomes friends with Annie and over time, brings several more mostly young men in need of shelter to her door. Some die soon after arriving, others are with her and Rosie for longer. The terror of this new illness is compounded by a lack of knowledge, misinformation and cruelly homophobic media scaremongering; it's not surprising then that her neighbours, concerned for their moral and physical lives, are horrified.
Although often heartbreaking and simmering with understandable rage, Jessica Moor also infuses Hold Back the Night with warmth and humour, particularly in the chapters set in the 1980s. The men who come to live with her – Robbie, Vidur, Mackie, Keith, Graham, Davey, David, Lee – aren't just names and their individual essences are conveyed beautifully. By 2020, the tables have ironically turned and in the midst of the pandemic, it's the elderly and therefore more vulnerable Annie who has become a figure to either protect or avoid. The comparisons between societal attitudes are fascinating; how quickly fearful communities become divided as we revert to suspicion and self-preservation.
The development of Annie's character through the book is exceptional. The novel doesn't have a linear structure but as the narrative takes us back and forth between the decades, each section is a distinctive, engrossing part of Annie's poignant life story. Her relationships with Rita, Jim and Rosie, as well as others, give us an insight into how her actions impacted the lives of those she knew, as well as herself. The young Annie is woefully naïve and later, the act of opening her home to so many stricken men is perhaps borne more from a need for atonement than through altruism, especially when the impact on her daughter is considered. She is portrayed authentically as a nuanced figure and therefore not everyone is able to forgive her..
Hold Back the Night is a powerful, affecting novel; it is heartrending and angry, and yet ultimately a hopeful story of love and redemption. I loved every word and very highly recommend it.
Hold Back the Night is published by Manilla Press, a Bonnier imprint. It can be purchased from bookshop.org, Hive, Waterstones, Kobo, Amazon or your favourite independent bookshop.
Follow the blog tour, details are below.
About the Author
Prior to this she spent a year working in the violence against women and girls sector and this experience inspired her first novel, Keeper. Her second novel, Young Women, was published in 2022.
She was selected as one of the Guardian's 10 best debut novelists of 2020, longlisted for the 2020 Desmond Elliot Prize and a Mystery Writers of America Award. She won the 2022 Nouvelle Voix du Polar. She lectures in Creative Writing and her third novel Hold Back the Night. was published in hardback on 9th May 2024.
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