Inspired by the true story of a still-unidentified traveller who appeared dead on Rosses Point beach in County Sligo in 2009, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspenseful.
On an isolated beach set against a lonely, windswept coastline, a pale figure sits serenely against a sand dune staring out towards an old shipwreck at the water's edge. All those who see the man in the early morning light notice the same three things: his hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed and there is a faint smile on his face.
No one knows who the dead man is or how he died, but everyone in the nearby village has their theory - a drunk vagrant who stumbled from the cliff, a sailor who fell from one of the countless vessels that drift by daily or perhaps someone that is linked to the ship wrecked on the beach decades before.
Told through a chorus of voices in the village, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of their lives - true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present - to unravel the story of one nameless man, alone on a beach. Elegiac and atmospheric, dark and disquieting, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel marks her arrival as one of the most uniquely gifted writers at work in literary fiction today.
Falling Animals
By Sheila Armstrong
Inspired by the true story of a still-unidentified traveller who appeared
dead on Rosses Point beach in County Sligo in 2009, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspenseful.Material available
Rights Sold
Danish, Dutch; Flemish
Book Details
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 05/2023
Format: 216 x 135 mm | 176 pagesAbout the Author
Sheila Armstrong is a writer from the northwest of Ireland. She spent
ten years in publishing and now works as a freelance editor. Her first
collection of short stories, How To Gut A Fish, was published in 2022.