Description

A short, exquisite novel about love, loss and making sense of the world – as heartbreakingly moving as it is outrageous and funny

‘A universal love story’ Guardian

‘Beautiful, funny, profound … read it in one glowing session’ New Statesman

‘A book for anyone who ever has been or ever will be heartbroken. So that’s everyone.’ Hollie McNish

Love builds up little by little and that’s why it makes people reach for words like root and sediment and other words to do with rocks and trees. But what about the dismantling? Does it happen that way too? Because it feels like it is happening much, much faster. And I am reaching for words like landslide and like wave and like storm …

Exquisitely crafted, wildly imaginative and as darkly funny as it is moving, Hourglass is a revolutionary love story. It turns time upside down, combs the intimate wreckage of heartbreak for something universal, and asks what it means to lose what you love.

Publisher Review

Beautiful, funny, profound ... Read it in one glowing session * New Statesman * The charms of Hourglass, like those of the narrator himself, are insidious. This is a sad book that is somehow wickedly fun to read * LA Times * An arresting, exquisitely told love story ... if ever a book could be read as a pilgrimage to discover what the heart finds sacred, this is it. * Irish Times * Hourglass burnishes its ideas of love and agony with an almost mystical attention to feeling. This book truly glows in the heart of the reader -- Max Porter Evocative, ecstatic, and saturated with off-kilter wit, Hourglass renders heartbreak as both vividly, luminously particular, and intensely, intimately familiar. There are lines from this remarkable book etched all over my memory, indelible -- Alexandra Kleeman This book is such a sneaky head f*ck - an epic poem in an ancient style about the brutalities of modern love, a masculine interrogation of feminine heartbreak, a really beautiful way to spend an evening -- Lena Dunham Hourglass will stay with me for a long time. Hypnotic. -- Lemn Sissay A book for anyone who ever has been or ever will be heartbroken. So that's everyone. -- Hollie McNish A stunning reimagining of the love story ... every word shines new and true -- Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure Shockingly intimate and devastatingly funny, bleak and true -- Luke Kennard, author of The Answer to Everything This book is a world. A broken dance floor of glass and gold, so rare and precious you barely believe it is real, but haunts you all day like a song. Vivid and brilliant. -- Greta Bellamacina This is high-wire writing: a novel where every sentence counts. They add up to something profoundly honest and truly magical -- Matt Thorne This is a beautiful book: by turns tough and tender, acerbically funny and deeply humane. Keiran Goddard's mind is a marvel. We are lucky to have him. -- Tabitha Lasley A story of doomed romance as touching as it is abstract * Financial Times * A universal love story * Guardian * Beautiful and very funny -- Brett Anderson