Julia Armfield’s Private Rites is part speculative novel, part domestic drama, as three feuding sisters seek closure after their father’s death while the city they live in is slowly destroyed by heavy rains and flooding.
Sisters Isla and Irene, and their much younger stepsister, Agnes, inhabit a London-like city where it has been raining longer than anyone can remember. All three are survivors of a traumatic upbringing: Their father, Stephen, was a harsh man, pitting the two older girls against one another and mocking their weaknesses. After divorcing Isla and Irene’s mother, Stephen, a notable avant-garde architect, quickly married again. But when Agnes was born, her mother disappeared, leaving all three girls to be brought up by their father. The sisters are resentful and jealous of one another, rarely getting together as adults. Bossy Isla is trying to keep her psychiatric practice going despite losing patients, and Irene spends her time scrolling through internet forums where people role-play the pre-apocalypse world: “I’d pick you up in my car because I have a car,” reads one post. Agnes, who’s used to drifting between sexual partners, meets a girl at the coffee shop where she works and is startled by the intimate relationship that develops. Meanwhile, as the rain continues, whole neighborhoods are lost to flooding, and their inhabitants are forced to move to higher and higher ground.
The fragile ties between the sisters further disintegrate after Stephen’s death. Harsh words are exchanged at Stephen’s funeral, and when the will is read, the two older sisters find that the family house has been left to Agnes, who doesn’t want it. The intense sibling drama can’t hide the fact that there are some very weird things going on besides the weather—the absence of their mothers, Agnes’ spotty memories and hazy dreams, and how strangers constantly recognize the three sisters when they are out in public.
Private Rites excels as a spooky character study, moving seamlessly between the sisters and their partners and creating a rich narrative despite its brevity (barely over 200 pages). Following its clever echoes of King Lear (an overbearing father, three bickering daughters, endlessly howling storms) and all-too-believable evocation of climate apocalypse, the novel’s resolution unfortunately feels like a misstep. Until the end, however, Armfield goes deep into the damaged psyches of three unusual women who search for connection despite their father’s cruel legacy.
