The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss

'If I had dared, I would have reached out to put my arm around my sad, cold daughter.' At the core of Moss’s fifth novel is a parent-child relationship tenderly observed and delicately wrought. When narrator Adam Goldschmidt’s 15-year-old daughter Miriam collapses and nearly dies as a result of a severe anaphylactic episode, weeks of hospital incarceration preface a lifetime of anxious watchfulness – the unthinking freedom of youth snatched back and replaced with the medical identity bracelet and the epipen.

In how Moss manages not just its central narrative, but also its supporting strands, The Tidal Zone achieves a sense of scale beyond the humdrum of its West Midlands setting. A pointed detangling of family life, and an equally sharp examination of social justice and healthcare politics, it resonates with an emotional intelligence that recalls the work of Jon McGregor.

At its close, when the book’s oblique title is finally explained, it is not Adam's voice that lingers, but Miriam’s. Uncowed by her condition ('If it happens again and I don’t survive, burn me, OK? There isn’t room for everyone to be buried') and possessed of a steely worldview and mordant wit ('It’s a sign of despair,' she offers after taking up knitting in hospital), she breathes life into a novel that manages laughter and tears with extraordinary assurance.