Sipsworth
Helen Cartwright is in her eighties and has come back to the English village of her childhood after sixty years abroad, following the deaths of her husband and son. She wants nothing more than to slip quietly out of the world. Then one cold night a mouse appears in her house, and almost against her will she decides to keep it alive, naming it Sipsworth for the dainty way it drinks. Caring for the small creature pulls Helen back into contact with neighbors, a pet shop, a kind old man, and the possibility of connection she had given up on. Simon Van Booy writes a short, gentle novel about loneliness, grief, and the quiet ways a life can begin again.
What you might want to know about Sipsworth
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A grieving older woman who has returned home to die alone finds her life slowly reopened by a stray mouse she takes in.
Yes. Ann Patchett praised it and recommended it on PBS NewsHour's summer reading segment, saying she loved it.
Sipsworth was written by Simon Van Booy, published in 2024 by David R. Godine.
Sipsworth is 208 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Sipsworth takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Sipsworth is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.