Falling Animals: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick

Product Information

Told through a chorus of voices, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. A year to the day after the man’s death, a memorial is unveiled filled with names of those who’ve perished at sea. It’s so beautifully written that you find yourself wanting to highlight every sentence, every perfect turn of phrase. Vanaf de eerste zinnen voel je dat dit een verhaal is om langzaam te lezen… en soms stukjes te herlezen.

Falling Animals is a stunning novel which gathers a collection of encounters with an unidentified man on the last days of his life. People live in each other’s shadow; we must shelter each other rather than live alone and suffer in pride. Sometimes she finds that her throat is sore, and it is only the rough pain that lets her know she has been silently screaming.But still, they feel a tenderness towards him, as if he were a bird caught in their kitchen curtains. 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. This beautiful book had me engaged from the very first page and all the way through until the last chapter. Armstrong has a very powerful voice, an eye for nuance and image that far exceeds many of her contemporaries, and she puts it to good use here.

I really cannot even begin to describe the quality of the writing as it haunts, provokes, evokes, and stimulates the mind. Told through a chorus of voices, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. Each of the chapters did an excellent job of fully realising the different perspectives of the villagers. His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed, and a faint smile is on his otherwise lifeless face. Initially the chapters seemed only vaguely connected, and despite the poetic and immaculately honed prose I wasn't hooked.Against the backdrop of a shipwreck off a remote coast of Ireland, we are given a glimpse into the minds and lives of various characters who are connected to it in some way over different time periods. The disquieting story of an unidentified man as told by those who crossed paths with him on the last day of his life, Sheila Armstrong’s debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspenseful. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. The haunting story of an unidentified man, told by those who crossed paths with him on the last day of his life, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel is lyrical and darkly suspenseful --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Poignantly, in the final chapter the dead are given a voice but the novel ends on a life-affirming note.

The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The novel is told in a series of short third party point of view chapters (with a Greek chorus of other sea victims in the final chapter). The writing is rich and poetic, achingly evocative of the raw and elemental nature of the windswept and briny Sligo shores. Some of us leapt overboard, iron shackles around our ankles, rather than become slaves to heartless men.The story is set in a small Irish coastal town where a man is found dead on a beach, sitting upright and cross-legged, with not a shred of identity on him.

I have previously read Armstrong’s collection of short stories, How to Gut a Fish, and while I didn’t particularly get on with those, this novel was an entirely different experience for me. 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. I realize I've quoted excessively from the novel, but in the end I wanted to highlight the writing primarily, the words themselves; Sheila Armstrong should be commended for weaving a tale—no matter how spectrally it avoids our grasp at times, loose ends forever untied, roads not followed—from such bountiful materials.

Falling Animals opens with the discovery of a man's body on a beach in an unnamed coastal town in Ireland. The still-living carry those parts around with them: kind words and gentle skin-touches and sweet, sweet tears. I could quickly inhale this gem in one sitting, but it's one not to rush; take your time and savour the haunting, evocative, pitch perfect prose and dialect. The next morning, the sea is flat and cool, like a drunk embarrassed by his antics the night before.