"The Tidal Zone" by Sarah Moss

An audio book set near Coventry.

Emma (a doctor) and Adam (it's his PoV - he's the main carer) have a daughter Miriam (15) whose heart stops at school (earlier she'd had "episodes", but her mother had dismissed them). She recovers, staying in hospital while doctors try to diagnose the issue. They also have another, younger daughter Rose.

He has a PhD but only does a couple of hours a week lecturing on the Arts and Crafts movement. He wonders about things/buildings being venerated merely because they are old. Miriam suggests that his interest in history is an avoidance mechanism. He knows a lot about Coventry cathedrals and the bombings (he compares the war-time anxiety of sudden death to how he feels about Miriam). One of the designs for the new cathedral was for an underground "bomb shelter" building. The murals were made by a camouflage expert. Miriam is bright, vocal, political. Adam becomes conversant with hospital codes and conventions - some of the young staff look as if they're "entering a Fun Run dressed as a nurse". Other parents have "broken narratives".

His father went from commune to commune in the States. For him, Europe was more an art gallery than a continent. We're told (I don't know why) about Indigo and Rainbow in the commune, the need to fetch a doctor. He's comfortably off now, having inherited (American, with Jewish parents). Adam's mother died swimming in the sea - maybe her heart stopped like Miriam's did. After 2 weeks Miriam returns home. Adam's father is there. Miriam can't go back to school yet. She worries whether she should be buried or cremated. She may have permanent cognitive deficiency. Adam becomes over-protective. He hasn't had sex for weeks. He's the one who has to deal with the internal politics of universities, hospitals and schools. We see the world (things big and small) through Adam's eyes. He's often the only father at gatherings. He escorts other people's sons to the toilet.

Rose has a bout of wheeziness at a swimming pool. Emma says she wants another child. They make love. They visit his father on the Cornwall coast where he grew up. He and the girls explore rockpools while Emma looks at her phone. They think about holidays - "like a diagnosis, a story can become a prison".

Adam's explanation to Rose about what happened to Miriam at school repeats much of what we've already been told, which doesn't seem quite right. Other episodes are re-told too - not from a startlingly new PoV, but prefixed by "Once upon a time" with self-consciously narratological asides. And Adam ruminates. I know something about the internal politics of universities and hospitals, so those parts seemed rather tame to me. I didn't understand the fable at the end - the book hasn't used them before. Adam's father's life story is of some use to the main theme but I think that could have been reported in a paragraph without the father needing to appear.

Other reviews

• Penelope Lively
• Mandy Wright
• ellethinks (Adam and his wife Emma exist in our world, where their division of household labour is viewed as progressive and vaguely alien ... weaving poetic interstices among the episodes of action that draw them all together, give the reader a chance to breathe. The Tidal Zone is full of social commentary that passes off so casually, usually in dialogue and quite often in sarcasm, that you don’t see it until it’s already happened.)
• thefictionfox (What could have easily become a melodramatic or overly-heavy slog was kept light through its relatable and likable characters. Most easy to like is Miriam herself, as a smart and sassy teen, who doesn’t take any over-protective “bullshit” from her dad. But cautious and protective stay-at-home dad Adam, and rational Emma who uses her medical knowledge as a GP to build up a wall, also make for a lovable cast. ... some minor pacing-issues around the 60%-mark)
• Rebecca Foster (Just as tidal pools mark the boundary between the land and the sea, this novel probes the liminal space between survival and death ... The extraordinary first chapter opens with “Once upon a time” and narrates the quotidian miracles of conception, pregnancy, birth and child development before making this personal, proceeding from “the girl” to “you” and finally to “I” in the second chapter. On several (perhaps one too many) occasions Moss repeats that fairytale opener ... I felt a bit too much time was spent on Adam’s father, and in the back of my mind was the niggling thought that this First World family is never facing true disaster because they have all kinds of safety nets in place; Moss’s is a very middle-class vision. I also think some readers could struggle with the slight aimlessness of the plot, though by the end you do get the sense that the characters are looking to the future in simple ways.)