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The Pier Falls - Mark Haddon

By Mark Haddon

Release Date: 2016-05-10

Genre: Literary Fiction

4 (12 ratings)
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From Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, A Spot of Bother, and The Red House, nine dazzling stories diverse in style but united in emotional power

The tales in Mark Haddon’s lyrical and uncompromising new collection take many forms—Victorian adventure story, science fiction, morality tale, contemporary realism—but they all showcase his virtuoso gifts as a stylist and the deep well of empathy that made his three bestselling novels so compelling.
     The characters here are often isolated physically or estranged from their families, yet they yearn for connection. In aggregate the stories become a meditation on the essential aloneness of the human condition but also on the connections, however tenuous and imperfect, that link people to one another. In the title story, an unnamed narrator describes with cool precision a catastrophe that strikes a seaside town, both tearing lives apart and bringing them together. 
     In the prizewinning story “The Gun,” a boy’s life is marked by the afternoon he encounters a semiautomatic pistol belonging to his friend’s older brother; in “The Island,” a Greek princess is abandoned on an island by her abductor; in “The Boys Who Left Home to Learn Fear,” a group of adventurers travel deep into the Amazonian jungle but discover the gravest danger lurking among their own number; and in “The Woodpecker and the Wolf,” a woman wonders whether she has chosen to travel to Mars only to escape the entanglement of human relationships back here on Earth.
     Drawing inventively from history, myth, folktales, and modern life, The Pier Falls showcases Haddon’s immense gifts of invention and penetrating insight.

The Pier Falls - Mark Haddon

By Mark Haddon

Release Date: 2016-05-10

Genre: Literary Fiction

4 (12 ratings)
Read Download
From Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, A Spot of Bother, and The Red House, nine dazzling stories diverse in style but united in emotional power

The tales in Mark Haddon’s lyrical and uncompromising new collection take many forms—Victorian adventure story, science fiction, morality tale, contemporary realism—but they all showcase his virtuoso gifts as a stylist and the deep well of empathy that made his three bestselling novels so compelling.
     The characters here are often isolated physically or estranged from their families, yet they yearn for connection. In aggregate the stories become a meditation on the essential aloneness of the human condition but also on the connections, however tenuous and imperfect, that link people to one another. In the title story, an unnamed narrator describes with cool precision a catastrophe that strikes a seaside town, both tearing lives apart and bringing them together. 
     In the prizewinning story “The Gun,” a boy’s life is marked by the afternoon he encounters a semiautomatic pistol belonging to his friend’s older brother; in “The Island,” a Greek princess is abandoned on an island by her abductor; in “The Boys Who Left Home to Learn Fear,” a group of adventurers travel deep into the Amazonian jungle but discover the gravest danger lurking among their own number; and in “The Woodpecker and the Wolf,” a woman wonders whether she has chosen to travel to Mars only to escape the entanglement of human relationships back here on Earth.
     Drawing inventively from history, myth, folktales, and modern life, The Pier Falls showcases Haddon’s immense gifts of invention and penetrating insight.

More by Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Red House

A Spot of Bother

The Porpoise

Leaving Home

The Pier Falls

Boom!

Stop What You're Doing And Read This!

Dogs and Monsters

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon | Conversation Starters

El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea

Supergute Tage oder Die sonderbare Welt des Christopher Boone

Lo strano caso del cane ucciso a mezzanotte

Le bizarre incident du chien pendant la nuit

The New Abject

Una cosa da nulla

El delfĂ­n

Das rote Haus

Boom!

O estranho caso do cachorro morto

The Sea of Tranquility

I ragazzi che se ne andarono di casa in cerca della paura

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

La casa rossa

La Focena

Marsuinul

Eight Ghosts

A delfin

The Ice Bear’s Cave

A kutya kĂŒlönös esete az Ă©jszakĂĄban

Two Stories

Het wonderbaarlijke voorval met de hond in de nacht

Ocho fantasmas ingleses

Vacances Ă  l'anglaise

Den mystiske sag om hunden i natten

Den mystiske sag om hunden i natten

ΠοÎčÎżÏ‚ ÎŁÎșότωσΔ Ï„Îż ÎŁÎșÏÎ»Îż τα ÎœÎ”ÏƒÎŹÎœÏ…Ï‡Ï„Î±

L'Odyssée du marsouin

El curiĂłs incident del gos a mitjanit

Bum!

Il cavallo parlante e la ragazza triste e il villaggio sotto il mare

Wonderbaarlijke voorval met de hond in de nacht

Čudná príhoda so psom uprostred noci

PodivnĂœ pƙípad se psem

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