Falling Animals: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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The author has published a book of short stories and telling the story through so many viewpoints, she engages the reader quickly in each chapter and keeps the novel moving. The structure is unusual with not always obvious continuity but I was so absorbed by the story telling that I did not really notice until almost half way into the book. The story delves into its history and the enigma of the dead man, peeling back the lives of everybody involved. From strandings to shipwrecks, it is not the first time that strangeness has washed up on their shores.

In Falling Animals, interlinked lives orbit around the central black hole of a man's unidentified corpse found on the beach of an isolated Irish village.Overall I found this an enjoyable book – the author’s short story skills are clear in her ability to capture a life in only a few pages – one could perhaps criticise the novel for its rather wide representation of cultures across the world (although the author acknowledges this vulnerability) but this was a worthwhile if unremarkable read. This was their book club selection for the month and I wish I was still there to discuss this very interesting mystery. The effect is some what like a combination of Reservoir 13 and Reservoir Tapes – although without the nature descriptions and seasonal patterns of the former – also while the reason for the disappearance become deliberately close to incidental in McGregor’s work (which focuses instead on the echoes it leaves behind) in this book the protagonists are much more closely involved and the identity of the man and the reason for him coming to die on the coast are (just about) made clear by the end.

Some of the writing was very beautiful and although I thought some sections veered too far from the central narrative, she brought the mystery to a very thoughtful end. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). I would have preferred some sort of rounding out at the end, but it finished as it began with many unknowns.I’ve been meaning to say that you are one of two book bloggers whom I regularly read who really seem to have my reading needs in mind. Through vignettes, we get to know the people in the village, and around the world, that came into contact with whoever this man was. The stunning cover on Falling Animals will surely have readers picking this up off the shelves, but dive into this story, and you'll not be disappointed.

A body on the beach found in a sitting position sets the story for some breathtakingly inventive and highly original creative storytelling. There were no signs of foul play or drowning, but a post-mortem revealed that he had an advanced stage of cancer. The still-living carry those parts around with them: kind words and gentle skin-touches and sweet, sweet tears. Each chapter then tells the story of a different character from that town, their stories separate but connected and overlapping.Sometimes she finds that her throat is sore, and it is only the rough pain that lets her know she has been silently screaming. Nothing I’ve never experienced before (in recent memory, Fernanda Melchor did the sprawling multi-character narrative centred on a dead person much more effectively than this ) but I found that there were elements of this book that simply would not have been possible were it written by someone else. His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed, and a faint smile is on his otherwise lifeless face. Deze gebeurtenis zet de bewoners van het dorpje, gelegen op de kliffen, aan om ieder hun verhaal te vertellen.