This very atmospheric novel is told as a mosaic of multiple points of view, each chapter a short story about a different character's sometimes fleeting connection to the unidentified dead body found on the windswept Irish beach. Initially the chapters seemed only vaguely connected, and despite the poetic and immaculately honed prose I wasn't hooked. But by a third of the way in a delicately woven structure appeared and I was caught up in the achingly human lives of Armstrong's characters. At 12:45am I seriously contemplated just pushing on to finish the book in one sitting. There is an aching sadness, in the car, but it is untethered: the dead man is a stranger to them. But still, they feel a tenderness towards him, as if he were a bird caught in their kitchen curtains. she rolls down the windows to let the breeze in, to let the grief fly out." The local gardaí investigate but without success. There’s no apparent foul play. There’s no one come forward to identify the man. But the mystery of his life and death lingers long after he’s buried in an unmarked grave, drawing the nearby villagers into its wake.

Falling Animals is Armstrong’s exceptional debut novel. The story is less concerned with the dead man than the other character’s lives. It is far from your typical mystery or crime novel. Told through a chorus of voices, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. Slowly, over great time and distance, the story of one man, alone on a beach, begins to unravel. Elegiac and atmospheric, dark and disquieting, Sheila Armstrong’s debut novel marks her arrival as one of the most uniquely gifted writers at work in literary fiction today. I loved How to Gut a Fish, and I love [Falling Animals] too. Armstrong's curiosity in the 'small' moments of people's lives is immersive and hypnotic. I found the novel to be tender and dark, alive with the sense that all destinies are intertwined. She is such a fabulous writer." - Megan Bradbury Fourth, each of your POVs has to be a real person. They can’t simply be a camera lens directed at your story, a tool to provide clunky information. If the only way you can get a character’s troubled childhood across is to jump into the shoes of their primary school teacher, who is then never mentioned again, that may be a problem. Each character you use should supply information, or underline a theme – but they must also be a supporting stitch in the patchwork.The book is split into many accounts from people who knew of the dead man on the beach. I enjoyed some of their stories more than others. What I would give for a whole novel about Nessa. I could have read about her for hours. Her chapter then leads into the final one; an ending that has me in a chokehold. Utterly unsatisfying and yet, complete and resolute. I really enjoyed Falling Animals, and look forward to reading How to Gut a Fish, this author’s short story collection. Forum for spirited and convivial discussion of fiction from around the world, with particular though not exclusive focus on 20th and 21st century fict Forum for spirited and convivial discussion of fiction from around the world, with particular though not exclusive focus on 20th and 21st century fiction recognized in US, UK, international, and other nation-specific prizes. Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in 1937 during her attempt to circumnavigate the world is deeply fixed in the public imagination. In this fictive autobiography, Mendelsohn imagines the fate of America’s most famous missing person. Stranded on an island with her navigator, Earhart reflects on her life, her marriage to George Palmer Putnam and the pressures surrounding the final flights. The prose is sensuous and lyrical: they flew “like fugitive angels”, she writes, and “spent our days feverish from the flaming sun or lost in the artillery of monsoon rains and almost always astonished by the unearthly architecture of the sky”. The chapters are short and we only get a brief glimpse of most characters, but they are so well crafted, fully rounded people, that I was left wanting some of their individual stories to be fleshed out into full novels. Armstrong's writing captures the struggles and real lives of her characters with a gentle yet powerful touch.

Deze gebeurtenis zet de bewoners van het dorpje, gelegen op de kliffen, aan om ieder hun verhaal te vertellen. Frank, die dicht bij het lijk kwam maar niets gezien heeft, vertelt over het opruimen van de kadavers van zeehonden op het strand. Bij Oona roept deze gebeurtenis herinneringen aan haar verdronken nichtje op. De buschauffeur herinnert zich een man die in Darragh uit de bus stapte. De getuige, de arts, de zwerver, de priester,… Zoveel verhalen, zoveel emoties die boven komen. Iedereen is meer betrokken dan aanvankelijk werd gedacht. Al deze mooie raamvertellingen zijn met fijne draadjes met elkaar verbonden. Het scheepswrak, dat dertig jaar geleden op de zandbank strandde, staat centraal in Er schuilt een vreemde in ons. This memoir about the mystery of Cumming’s mother’s identity and her abduction when she was three years old is beautifully descriptive yet reads almost like a thriller as the past unspools. With her mother, Cumming sifts through objects, photographs, police reports, and shadows of memories as they piece together the story of the missing persons in her mother’s life and her missing past. She quotes St Augustine: “The dead may be invisible, but they are not absent.” A stunning reflection on how we forget, remember and love, even those who have been missing all our lives. The sky is torn like and ancient sail, and a dusting of stars appears through the rip. Day will not break, but the darkness will slowly ease and lighten. For now, they are alive. Armstrong’s work is filled with the physical act of existing – bodies that fly, that fall, that are suspended in paroxysms of grief and loss and disbelief. The novel is anchored by a pair of bodies that linger on in the minds of the residents, firstly the mysterious body on the beach, and then the past mooring of a ship whose metaphorical corpse lingers below the surface of the bay. Even the title of the work is filled with the connotations of bodies succumbing to natural forces – the opening salvo highlights a ‘collector’ whose job is to remove the bodies of dead animals and recalls an incident of a spooked horse that plunged from a cliff, “[jumping] so high it had almost, almost flown”.

Complete this captcha to connect to Foyles

This is one of those books that will attract as many readers by it's cover as by it's premise. The colours, the texture of the sea, the salt rusted boat. If your eye is drawn, this story is definitely for you. The North West coast of Ireland is a wild and rugged place. It's people are inextricably linked to the sea, which in turn links them to everyone and everything that is touched by the sea.