The Falling Thread
Published on 11. November 2021
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-4088-5653-6 (ISBN)
Description
'Exquisite' Financial Times
'Funny and moving, full of surprises and challenging ideas' Times Literary Supplement
'Deeply satisfying' Guardian
'O'Riordan imbues his narrative with an acutely modern awareness of power and capitalism' The Times
__________________
Manchester, the summer of 1890. A city humming with industry and gleaming with affluence.
But for Charles, cloistered in his middle-class parents' suburban villa on holiday from university, the city's vibrancy holds no charms. Bored and a little listless, he spends the summer in pursuit of his little sisters' governess, Hettie. Before the summer's end, both must face the consequences of their affair - consequences they will live with for the rest of their lives.
Charles's sisters come of age as women of the new century - and experience a very different Manchester from their brother and guardian. In the smog and glitter of the city, both sisters will discover the very different things they seek, and the very different women they will become. But as a new era springs into being, a darker shadow stretches, threatening to engulf the whole world...
A captivating portrait of a family in time, The Falling Thread is a hauntingly evocative debut novel from one of our most exciting literary talents.
'Funny and moving, full of surprises and challenging ideas' Times Literary Supplement
'Deeply satisfying' Guardian
'O'Riordan imbues his narrative with an acutely modern awareness of power and capitalism' The Times
__________________
Manchester, the summer of 1890. A city humming with industry and gleaming with affluence.
But for Charles, cloistered in his middle-class parents' suburban villa on holiday from university, the city's vibrancy holds no charms. Bored and a little listless, he spends the summer in pursuit of his little sisters' governess, Hettie. Before the summer's end, both must face the consequences of their affair - consequences they will live with for the rest of their lives.
Charles's sisters come of age as women of the new century - and experience a very different Manchester from their brother and guardian. In the smog and glitter of the city, both sisters will discover the very different things they seek, and the very different women they will become. But as a new era springs into being, a darker shadow stretches, threatening to engulf the whole world...
A captivating portrait of a family in time, The Falling Thread is a hauntingly evocative debut novel from one of our most exciting literary talents.
Reviews / Votes
An elegant, enthralling novel. I found I couldn't stop reading this intimiste epic of social change in the years leading up to the First World War. It has the lustre of life, beautiful and poignant -- ADAM FOULDS This poised, Jamesian debut novel about a Manchester family in the lead up to the first world war is a masterclass in detail and atmosphere ... As with Breugel's painting, it's the incidental which is momentous, the everyday given such intimate attention that it becomes extraordinary ... Reading this book feels like stepping through a hushed and ornate museum, or a model village whose simulacrum of real life is so perfect as to be unsettling * OBSERVER * Super-assured ... Wholly convincing lives, described and written with great limpid precision of language -- WILLIAM BOYD A wonderful evocation of period - through language, clothes, objects - any reader will be irresistibly transported to Manchester and the lives of this strange Edwardian family -- TIM PEARS Captures the broad canvas of a vibrant city, as well as the fine grain of daily life ... A deeply satisfying meshing of the vast sweep of history with the familiar textures of lives as they are lived * GUARDIAN * A family saga with below-stairs scenes, written in calm, decorous prose. It is also funny and moving, fully of surprises and challenging ideas ... Its evocation of the past offers many gifts of observation and psychological insight. His writing is a constant pleasure -- Lindsay Duguid * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * O'Riordan's prose is exquisite, and his tone cool and ironic, while subtly drawing attention to the barriers of class, gender and sexuality * FINANCIAL TIMES * Immaculately written ... the detail and the dialogue are acutely rendered * LITERARY REVIEW * Exquisite * METRO * Immaculately written ... O'Riordan imbues his narrative with an acutely modern awareness of power and capitalism * THE TIMES * Elegant and engaging ... Beautifully observed detail and skilful evocation of the turbulence of the time * DAILY MAIL * It's bloody brilliant -- GUY GARVEY Beguiling ... A read to warm a winter evening * DAILY MAIL, Books of the Year * Strong on atmosphere ... Lyrical * TABLET * Compelling ... The novel's considered portrait of upper-class lives brings a Jamesian quality to this debut * IRISH TIMES *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Weight
542 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-5653-6 (9781408856536)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Adam O'Riordan
The Falling Thread
E-Book
11/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Adam O'Riordan is the author of two collections of poems In the Flesh and A Herring Famine and the short story collection The Burning Ground. He grew up in Manchester and later read English at Oxford, winning scholarships to do a Masters and PhD with Professor Andrew Motion at the University of London. After working in publishing for several years, he was appointed Poet-in-Residence at the Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2008 and a Somerset Maugham Award in 2011. Until 2019 he was Academic Director of Manchester Writing School and Programme Leader for the Creative Writing MA/MFA.
adamoriordan.com
adamoriordan.com