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I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning - by Keiran Goddard (Hardcover)
About this item
Highlights
- Told through the alternating perspectives of five childhood friends from the same housing estate in England, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning is a story about friendship, place, loss, addiction and the ways in which lives, minds, and bodies can be limited by material conditions; it also speaks powerfully to the ways in which humor, loyalty, and family can bestow meaning and life even in the toughest circumstances.Only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn't stop him from clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away.
- Author(s): Keiran Goddard
- 256 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Friendship
Description
About the Book
"Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they'd do with their lives"--Book Synopsis
Told through the alternating perspectives of five childhood friends from the same housing estate in England, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning is a story about friendship, place, loss, addiction and the ways in which lives, minds, and bodies can be limited by material conditions; it also speaks powerfully to the ways in which humor, loyalty, and family can bestow meaning and life even in the toughest circumstances.
Only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn't stop him from clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away. Oli is fading by the day, drinking and snorting his way through the endless boredom. Things are looking up for Conor, but he is never too far away from chaos. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, always the calm in the eye of the storm, but even they are rocked when old secrets begin to open new wounds.
Bold, ambitious, and stylistically striking, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning lays bare the economic, psychological, and spiritual impact of poverty, explores the redeeming and transforming beauty of friendship and examines the true limits of hope and forgiveness.
Review Quotes
"Some extraordinary writing about ordinary people."--Kirkus
"Goddard's startlingly truthful sentences and the collaborative narration style, with a few pages at a time from each character, make his sensitive novel nearly impossible to put down, each snippet a behind-the-scenes look at all the others. Amidst the loss, hardship, and heartbreak in these friendships, there is luck and much love, too."--Booklist
"There's a subtly radical treatment of narrative here. Rather than kinetic or dynamic storytelling, what Goddard offers as he switches between the voices of his five main characters is a series of tableaux and character studies...the technique is reminiscent of Jon McGregor"--The Guardian
"Full of eloquent one-liners, the novel explores the impacts of poverty, addiction, abuse, and loyalty from various vantage points, exposing both common ground and vast differences."--New York Journal of Books
Praise for Hourglass
"This book is such a sneaky head f*ck--an epic poem in an ancient style about the brutalities of modern love, a masculine interrogation of feminine heartbreak, a really beautiful way to spend an evening"--Lena Dunham
★ "Goddard's narrator writes movingly of his emotionally fragile mother, his complicated relationship with faith and other factors that define his life. 'You have to live, ' he says. 'What else is there to do with a life?' Hourglass is an elegant testament to the difficulty of figuring out how to do that."--Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"A funny and smart, insightful and strange story about time, memory, and grief... This is a lyrical meditation on love as well as storytelling itself."--Kirkus Reviews
"The charms of Hourglass, like those of the narrator himself, are insidious. This is a sad book that is somehow wickedly fun to read."--Los Angeles Times
"Like in the best comedy, Goddard disguises some of our deepest and hardest truths in jokes that make us both laugh and then--maybe hours or days or even years later--ask ourselves how we could possibly have found humor in such misery."--New York Journal of Books
"In addition to poetry, Goddard's project brings to mind the atomized tweet-inspired novels of writers like Patricia Lockwood. Like a distinctly revealing internet thread, this will capture readers' attention."--Publishers Weekly
"Hourglass glows in the heart of the reader."--Max Porter
"Evocative, ecstatic and saturated with off-kilter wit."--Alexandra Kleeman
"Hourglass will stay with me for a long time. Hypnotic."--Lemn Sissay
"If ever a book could be read as a pilgrimage to discover what the heart finds sacred, this is it."―Irish Times
"A book for anyone who ever has been or ever will be heartbroken."--Hollie McNish
"A stunning reimagining of the love story...every word shines new and true."--Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure