A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous --- feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint.  And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free. Here, with MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents and love.

At dusk on a November evening, a woman slips through her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week mandatory quarantine period, a true lockdown, but she can’t take it anymore --- the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know she’s stepped out. Kate planned only a quick walk --- a stretch of the legs, a breath of fresh air --- on paths she knows too well. But somehow she falls. Injured and unable to move, she sees that her short, furtive stroll will become a mountain rescue operation, maybe even a missing person case.

They rarely speak to each other, but they take notice --- watching from the safety of their cabins, making judgments from what little they know of their temporary neighbors. At daylight, a mother races up the mountain, fleeing into her precious dose of solitude. A retired man studies her return as he reminisces about the park’s better days. A young woman wonders about his politics as she sees him head for a drive with his wife. A teenage boy escapes the scrutiny of his family, braving the dark waters of the loch in a kayak. This cascade of perspective shows each wrapped up in personal concerns as they begin to notice one particular family that doesn’t seem to belong. Tensions rise, until nightfall brings an irrevocable turn.

In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age. For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, and speaking her mind. The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past. What comes next but human sacrifice?