Though the Bodies Fall | Granta

  • Published: 03/08/2023
  • ISBN: 9781783789498
  • 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.

Noel O'Regan writes beautifully. Though the Bodies Fall is a beautiful book

Audrey Magee

I opened it up one evening and was instantly captivated... The atmosphere is haunting; the imagery so powerful that it gave me strange dreams. This novel is a little bit uncanny and a little bit archaic but also incredibly contemporary and prescient

Sara Baume

I was immediately drawn into O'Regan's delicately wrought debut by the tenderness he has for his characters, and by the quiet power that builds beneath the surface of his storytelling

Carys Davies

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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