Though the Bodies Fall | Granta

  • Published: 03/08/2023
  • ISBN: 9781783789481
  • Granta Books
  • 272 pages

Though the Bodies Fall

Noel O'Regan

Micheál Burns lives alone in his family’s bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot. Micheál’s mother saw the saving of these lost souls – these visitors – as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, Micheál finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past.

O'Regan creates an evocative sense of place and depicts Micheál's sense of duty, guilt and increasing self-neglect with unflinching honesty

Lucy Popescu, Observer

A quietly moving story of stalled lives and lost chances... O'Regan writes with marked authority... An arresting and original novel that is grounded in its locale

Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times

O'Regan writes with compassion, humour and imaginative force, signalling the arrival of a major new voice in Irish writing

Claire Kilroy

The Author

Noel O’Regan was raised in Co. Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. He is the recipient of a number of prizes, including a 2022 Arts Council Next Generation Artist Award. His fiction has been published in the Stinging Fly, Ambit and the London Magazine.

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