The Art of Falling

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What to expect

A lyrical novel about family and relationships from the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award winner

WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES AUDIBLE SHORT STORY AWARD

Nessa McCormack's marriage is coming back together again after her husband's affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibit for one of Ireland's most beloved and enigmatic artists, the late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: a chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her, and at work, an odd woman comes forward claiming to be the true creator of Robert Locke's most famous work, The Chalk Sculpture.

As Nessa finds the past intruding on the present, she must decide whether she can continue to live a lie - or whether she's ready to face the consequences once everything is out in the open. In this gripping debut, Danielle McLaughlin reveals profound truths about love, power, and the secrets that rule us.

(P) 2021 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Critics Review

A superior work of character-driven literary fiction in the spirit of Bernard MacLaverty or Tessa Hadley . . . if The Art of Falling doesn't make a prize shortlist or two this year, we should riot
The Times
A gripping novel and a sharp, entertaining examination of the nature of art and its power to inspire and corrupt
Roddy Doyle
There are very few writers who can craft characters with the depth and subtlety Danielle McLaughlin brings to her writing. The Art of Falling is a delicate slow burn of a novel. It is a big novel sitting within a close and small frame; a book of unspoken regrets and long-kept secrets and the slow revelation of humanity. There are shades here of Alice Munro at her finest. Like Munro, McLaughlin is best when writing those quiet moments which resonate long after the event
Jan Carson
In The Art of Falling, McLaughlin adds to literature something fresh and vital: a real, unbeautified narrative about a woman's career and life. Truths withheld are part of that life, as they are part of the narrative . . . but none are withheld from the reader. The truths hit home, powerfully. A propulsive, disquieting, arrestive novel by a master of social realism
Caoilinn Hughes
McLaughlin's first novel delivers everything I hoped it would. Lush with finely-drawn characters, delectable detail and immaculate sentences, this is an elegant novel about secrets and lies and, ultimately, forgiveness. It's brilliant
Louise Kennedy
Second books come with a sense of heightened expectation. Danielle McLaughlin's Dinosaurs on Other Planets was one of the best debut collections of the decade. Having since won the Windham Campbell Award and Sunday Times Short Story Award, a lot is expected of her debut, The Art of Falling, and she does not disappoint
Irish Times
A compelling exploration of the ethics and emotional contours of marital affection and sexual infidelity . . . McLaughlin is a master of charting the volatility of characters' perceptions of themselves
FT
Remarkable . . . This engaging and evocative work will stay with readers
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The rarest of novels as it's both a page-turner and an affecting meditation on love, art, truth and faithfulness in all its forms
Sunday Business Post
The strength of the book lies in its slow-building picture of the way that intimacy and estrangement can coincide . . . moving and quietly uplifting
Guardian
Imaginative and intriguing
Irish Examiner
Her work reads like that of an old master. Her details are perfectly plucked, her images crystalline. And there's a sense
that what she's really saying is tucked between the lines. Whole worlds appear in words she hasn't written
Sunday Business Post

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