Description

‘Exquisite’ Financial Times

‘Funny and moving, full of surprises and challenging ideas’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Deeply satisfying’ Guardian

‘O’Riordan imbues his narrative with an acutely modern awareness of power and capitalism’ The Times
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Manchester, the summer of 1890. A city humming with industry and gleaming with affluence.

But for Charles, cloistered in his middle-class parents’ suburban villa on holiday from university, the city’s vibrancy holds no charms. Bored and a little listless, he spends the summer in pursuit of his little sisters’ governess, Hettie. Before the summer’s end, both must face the consequences of their affair – consequences they will live with for the rest of their lives.

Charles’s sisters come of age as women of the new century – and experience a very different Manchester from their brother and guardian. In the smog and glitter of the city, both sisters will discover the very different things they seek, and the very different women they will become. But as a new era springs into being, a darker shadow stretches, threatening to engulf the whole world…

A captivating portrait of a family in time, The Falling Thread is a hauntingly evocative debut novel from one of our most exciting literary talents.

Publisher Review

An elegant, enthralling novel. I found I couldn't stop reading this intimiste epic of social change in the years leading up to the First World War. It has the lustre of life, beautiful and poignant -- ADAM FOULDS Super-assured ... Wholly convincing lives, described and written with great limpid precision of language -- WILLIAM BOYD A wonderful evocation of period - through language, clothes, objects - any reader will be irresistibly transported to Manchester and the lives of this strange Edwardian family -- TIM PEARS Praise for Adam O'Riordan: 'Exquisitely observed ... These rich and varied slices of life ought to bring O'Riordan fresh admirers * Daily Telegraph * An impressive range of stories that run from the reflective to highly dramatic, and O'Riordan's verbal polish as a poet shines throughout ... Echoes of Ian McEwan and Graham Greene ... Haunting * Irish Times * Wonderful and beguiling ... Written with a cool, knowing lyricism, O'Riordan's work haunts and enthrals -- William Boyd The emotional temperature of these evocative stories is often scorching * Observer * O'Riordan is interested not in answers but in questions, in ambivalence: passing moments, frozen in time as if by a photographer's keen eye, a lens catching light * Financial Times * Witty and raw ... What is startling for someone of his age is the way he gets inside the minds of his older characters, as they are forced to confront the loss of their younger selves * Daily Mail * These stories convey beauty, wonder and expansiveness ... At the same time there is an ever present consciousness that success is precarious, relationships unreliable, human flesh vulnerable, and our sufferings insignificant in the grand universal scheme * Times Literary Supplement *