The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon | PenguinRandomHouse.com

About The Pier Falls

Nine dazzling stories from the beloved, bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

The stories that make up The Pier Falls take many forms—Victorian adventure, science fiction, morality tale, contemporary realism—but they are united by the talent and empathy that have made Mark Haddon a household name. Lyrical and uncompromising, these tales span from England to Mars, ancient Greece to the deepest Amazon. Drawing inventively from history, myth, folklore, and modern life, The Pier Falls reveals a previously unseen side of the celebrated author.

About The Pier Falls

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.

About The Pier Falls

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.

Praise

“Truly spectacular. . . . While reading these terrific tales one wonders how a single mind can create such diverse fiction as Mark Haddon has done here.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[Haddon is] a virtuoso stylist. . . . One reads in a state of surrender.” —Chicago Tribune

“Gripping. . . . [Haddon is an] expert and innovative world-builder. . . . His voice can convey the authority of ancient fairy tales.” —The New York Times

“The nine stories in [The Pier Falls] are exuberant, lusty exercises in juxtaposition: intimacy and estrangement, exoticism and domesticity, innocuousness and malevolence, the cataloguing of minute detail and the expansiveness of the zoomed-out lens.” —The Guardian

“Haunting. . . . It is rare that an author can write with such depth and clarity.” —Austin American Statesman

“The Pier Falls is pure genius and I’m jealous of every word.” —Douglas Coupland

About Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is the author of the bestselling novels The Red House and A Spot of Bother. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction… More about Mark Haddon

About Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is the author of the bestselling novels The Red House and A Spot of Bother. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction… More about Mark Haddon

About Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is the author of the bestselling novels The Red House and A Spot of Bother. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction… More about Mark Haddon

The Pier Falls

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Part of Vintage Contemporaries

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Ebook +

Audio +

Buy the Audiobook Download:

About The Pier Falls

About The Pier Falls

About The Pier Falls

Praise

About Mark Haddon

About Mark Haddon

About Mark Haddon

Product Details

Also by Mark Haddon

Inspired by Your Browsing History

Guides

Related Articles

Inspired by Your Browsing History

Biographile

Bookscout

Books for Better Living

Everyday eBook

First to Read

Suvudu

Tastebook

Word and Film

By Mark Haddon
Read by Clare Corbett and Daniel Weyman

Paperback
–

Ebook
+

Audio
+