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. A very fine debut which reminded me a little of Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 in both its structure and the quality of its writing. Interestingly, though Armstrong uses a real life event to inspire her novel, on June 16th, 2009, the body of a man (later identified as Peter Bergmann) was discovered on a beach in Sligo and, to this day, how he ended up there is shrouded in mystery. In Falling Animals, interlinked lives orbit around the central black hole of a man's unidentified corpse found on the beach of an isolated Irish village.

The story delves into its history and the enigma of the dead man, peeling back the lives of everybody involved.I was worried towards the middle where we veered quite off piece, but circled back round to the central mystery of the man on the beach. Each chapter focuses on a specific person and their life which may only have the most tangential link to the unidentified man and his story. Each character is given a dedicated chapter with unique titles like the collector, the witness, the firestarter, the diver and so forth. Overall I found this an enjoyable book – the author’s short story skills are clear in her ability to capture a life in only a few pages – one could perhaps criticise the novel for its rather wide representation of cultures across the world (although the author acknowledges this vulnerability) but this was a worthwhile if unremarkable read. Die korte beschrijvingen waren erg treffend, het leek alsof je even kort andere mensenlevens in keek.

Vaak zijn dit eenzame, stugge mensen waar slechts af en toe een glimpje menselijkheid aan af te lezen is.En al die tijd lieten de stormen en het tij de romp steeds dieper en dieper wegzinken in de zandbank, slokten hem beetje bij beetje op. Hij zit rechtop tegen een zandduin, met zijn handen gevouwen en de blote voeten over elkaar geslagen, volkomen sereen, en ze verbaast zich erover dat de zee hem zo netjes heeft uitgespuugd. His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed, and a faint smile is on his otherwise lifeless face. The stunning cover on Falling Animals will surely have readers picking this up off the shelves, but dive into this story, and you'll not be disappointed. The author has published a book of short stories and telling the story through so many viewpoints, she engages the reader quickly in each chapter and keeps the novel moving.

The writing is rich and poetic, achingly evocative of the raw and elemental nature of the windswept and briny Sligo shores. A wondrous commingling of characters - variously lost, broken, misplaced, striving, reaching - seamlessly bound together by a singular event. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance copy via NetGalley; as always, this is an honest review.Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit.

The effect is some what like a combination of Reservoir 13 and Reservoir Tapes – although without the nature descriptions and seasonal patterns of the former – also while the reason for the disappearance become deliberately close to incidental in McGregor’s work (which focuses instead on the echoes it leaves behind) in this book the protagonists are much more closely involved and the identity of the man and the reason for him coming to die on the coast are (just about) made clear by the end. Sat cross legged staring out at sea, his identity is a mystery but while this may be the opening of the story it is not it’s beginning. But if somebody picks it and skips to the last page for the answer, they’ll probably be disappointed.Armstrong deftly weaves these threads into the story of the village whose fortunes have declined over the years, and the shipwreck, one of many along this difficult coastline. This is a book that is very different to what I was expecting, and wildly different to anything I have read before. It's quite a melancholy tale - the sadness of a sick man dying completely alone is what moved me most of all. That had a touch of the surreal about it which I half expected from Falling Animals, given it’s slightly disconcerting, rather lovely cover, but Armstrong’s novel is not at all fantastical. Very different; I liked the different chapters focussing on the individuals and how they may, or may not, be linked to the deceased.