Strange Heart Beating

Reviews / Votes

Goldstone's book combines all-consuming grief with playful, knockabout drama... Strange Heart Beating, with its savage yet comforting undercurrent of a swan as an emblem of the soul reborn, is an ardent examination of loss, framed by multiple cultural allusions [and] is a reminder of the unknowability of those we truly love * Financial Times * There are funny moments in this book and sensuous descriptions of green, wolf-filled wildness of the Latvian forest, but it's also incredibly melancholy. Death and darkness are an inevitable part of life, especially in Eli Goldstone's world. But she expresses this so beautifully and simply that Strange Heart Beating is a joy to read -- Anna Fielding * Emerald Street * If the Coen Brothers had a sister, she would likely write like Goldstone, her pen dipped in weird black ink, piquant with fantasies and dread delusion * Jewish Chronicle * What a beautiful, rare thing Strange Heart Beating is - funny and tender, yes, but so ferocious, sweeping its reader towards wholly devastating realisations -- Lisa McInerney * The Glorious Heresies * The writing is terrific; the story so skilfully and finely unfolded, full of sly laughs and complex tenderness -- Sara Baume An enjoyable trip, wryly amusing and touching -- John Harding * Daily Mail * Goldstone's prose is laden with meaning, dark wit and a rich undercurrent of melancholy... With this compact, compelling and very powerful debut, Goldstone has signposted herself as a talented chronicler of human emotions and of the terrifying void that awaits us at the end of life's journey -- Jonny Sweet * Skinny * As a study of grief and a search for closure, Strange Heart Beating touches on many uncomfortable areas, such as the poignant truth that we can never know anybody as well as we think we do, or would like to * Sunday Herald * I adored this striking debut novel from a bewitching and deceptively complex young voice... A book of layers to become immersed in, tumbling away from the sharp edges of reality down the rabbit hole of Leda's origins... filled with the bitterness and melancholy of lost love, darkly witty and immersive from the first page. Eli Goldstone [...] has produced a remarkable debut. She anatomizes grief from the inside out, stripping it back to the sinew, hinting at the magical realism of Angela Carter's writing but establishing a penetrating and fearless style that is firmly her own * Claire Thinking * Goldstone has crafted a masterwork of minute bathos... Moving, tender, and poignant, but also richly peopled and crackling with a savage wit, Strange Heart Beating is not just a deliciously strange and oneiric attempt at answering a philosophical questions - can we ever really know another person - but also a sympathetic sketch of human grief -- Josh Philipps * Josh is Writing * A dark, witty, poignant novel about grief and love * Domestic Sluttery * [A] fierce, witty debut -- Lisa McInerney * Irish Times *