The Sun-Room by Jess Watts
The Weight of the Past, the Ghost of the Future, and Living with a Chronic Illness
I first came across Jess Watts’ memoir when looking through Linen Press’ social medias. When I saw they were seeking reviewers for a thought-provoking, angry, prose poem, I immediately volunteered. Since then, the UK has announced benefit cuts; the Financial Times have estimated that “800,000 [people] will lose disability payments by 2029-30”1.2 The Huffington Post claims “DWP’s own impact assessment of the cuts, 3.2 million families – including current and future benefit claimants – will lose an average of £1,720 a year.”3
Jess Watts’ The Sun-Room opens with such an intimate, almost confessional, introduction from her editor Lynn Mitchell. Her words genuinely moved me.
“Jess’ account of how this illness can halt a life needs to be published.
I know of no other personal story that reaches to the bare bones of the all-pervasive suffering that comes when a toxic virus takes up permanent residence in what was a healthy body.”
The Sun-Room, pp. 7-8.
After finishing The Sun-Room, I am in total agreement.
It is still uncommon, unfortunately, to see disabled voices centred in the publishing industry. While efforts have been made to diversify the industry, these have mainly targeted racial, gender and queer issues. Disability, chronic illnesses and the privilege of having an abled body do not yet receive the same noise that other sociopolitical issues do, and I want to help change that. The obvious way to do that through educating myself and reading widely and diversely.
Now, dear reader, doomscroller, whoever you are!, I want to introduce you to
. She’s been dreaming up stories for as long as she can remember4 and her debut publication focuses on a rarely spoken about aspect of chronic illness (which already doesn’t receive enough recognition).The Sun-Room by Jess Watts releases 3rd April 2025 from Linen Press.
The Sun-Room by Jess Watts
I want to start this review by recognising Watts’ craft. Her words are lyrical, deep and her prose is written with great expertise. It’s immediately noticeable in the prologue. I am usually more favourable to books written with a third person omniscient narrator, but The Sun-Room would not be as brilliant as it is without it. By reading The Sun-Room, I have decided it’s because most books written with a first person point of view feel blasé. Jess Watts does not shy away from expressing the full range of emotions and experiences. More writers should take a leaf out of her book.
I’ll hold my hands up and say that I don’t read a lot of literature by disabled authors and/or with characters and narrators. Reading The Sun-Room has been an educational, enjoyable and eye-opening experience. The range of emotions Watts confesses on page: anger, envy, sadness, yearning, fear of exclusion, nostalgia and eventually peace is phenomenal, serving as a reminder that people living with disabilities are human too. Yes, their day-to-day may be different, but that does not make them any less. One particular concoction of emotions has made a home within my mind: Watts expresses how she is not typically angry person, but her chronic illness is making them so. And this makes her feel alive. Her anger brews an energy within—whilst this sequence is fuelled fully by grief. Grief of the person she once was. Grief of the future version of herself she can no longer be. What was particularly memorable was how layered and vulnerable it is. Watts’ emotional intelligence transcends the fourth wall and arrives in the reader’s heart with a warmed message of acknowledgment and visibility, “You are here! And so am I!”
If you liked In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado – you’ll really like this! Watts’ structure and overall narration style reminds me of Machado’s own autofiction about an abusive sapphic relationship. It’s also a really good book!
The Sun-Room by Jess Watts is angry, brave, beautiful and deeply introspective. I urge everyone to read this.
The Sun-Room is available to purchase now from your local bookstore!
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/71d78b72-f6b8-4b01-abe9-4e2cb42871b2
Source: https://ground.news/article/labours-dwp-cuts-to-push-50-000-children-into-poverty-figures-show
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/spring-statement-2025-more-than-3-million-to-be-hit-by-catastrophic-welfare-cuts_uk_67e40766e4b06b1013ea5a49
Source: https://www.jesswattsauthor.com
You've written so gorgeously about your experience whilst reading my words. Thank you. Really. (I'll have to check out In The Dream House!!)