Lean Fall Stand
Jon McGregor
(Author)
Description
A thrilling and propulsive novel of an Antarctica expedition gone wrong and its far-reaching consequences for the explorers and their families "leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story" (Hilary Mantel). Remember the training: find shelter or make shelter, remain in place, establish contact with other members of the party, keep moving, keep calm. Robert 'Doc' Wright, a veteran of Antarctic surveying, was there on the ice when the worst happened. He holds within him the complete story of that night--but depleted by the disaster, Wright is no longer able to communicate the truth. Instead, in the wake of the catastrophic expedition, he faces the most daunting adventure of his life: learning a whole new way to be in the world. Meanwhile Anna, his wife, must suddenly scramble to navigate the sharp and unexpected contours of life as a caregiver. From the Booker Prize-longlisted, American Academy of Arts & Letters Award-winning author of Reservoir 13, this is a novel every bit as mesmerizing as its setting. Tenderly unraveling different notions of heroism through the rippling effects of one extraordinary expedition on an ordinary family, Lean Fall Stand explores the indomitable human impulse to turn our experiences into stories--even when the words may fail us.
Product Details
Price
$26.00
$24.18
Publisher
Catapult
Publish Date
September 21, 2021
Pages
288
Dimensions
5.8 X 8.2 X 1.1 inches | 0.95 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781646220991
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About the Author
Jon McGregor is the winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Costa Book Award, the Betty Trask Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award, and has been long-listed three times for the Man Booker Prize, most recently for his last novel, Reservoir 13. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Nottingham, England, where he edits The Letters Page, a literary journal in letters.
Reviews
A New Statesman Most Anticipated Book of the Year Lean Fall Stand is a beautiful piece of work and should win a roomful of prizes. Jon McGregor writes plainly and exactly, like a poet, and the precision of his writing makes every heart-beat register. The quality of his attention is a flicker of light around the fragile human condition, and it leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story. --Hilary Mantel A novel of complex feeling and beautiful restraint from one of the finest writers around. --Alexandra Harris, The Guardian Another McGregor novel that, beneath its serene surface, takes huge risks . . . Fortunately, it's also another McGregor novel that triumphantly gets away with it . . . McGregor commits himself so wholeheartedly to the project of honouring minutiae (and has the literary talent to match) that the scene when post-stroke Doc first learns to touch his nose feels almost as dramatic as an Antarctic blizzard. --James Walton, The Times Jon McGregor's new novel . . . opens as excitingly as any work of fiction I've recently read . . . It's extraordinarily tense and atmospheric--and McGregor's prose is tight as a wire. --The Telegraph Jon McGregor's latest has the most thrilling beginning I've read in a novel for some time . . . It's a deft sleight of hand--to seduce readers with a spectacular action narrative before giving them an entirely different novel about how we communicate--but regular readers of McGregor will know that it's the unsensational drama contained within the ordinary that interests him as a writer. --Claire Allfree, Daily Mail Above all, this is a novel about language: how we fail it as much as it fails us . . . McGregor's precise, well-judged prose attests to both the power of language and to the havoc created by its loss. --Financial Times The breathtaking opening chapters describe a research expedition which goes horribly and fatally wrong. It starts out as a white-knuckle ride of a story, before Mr McGregor changes course . . . With skill and compassion Mr. McGregor evokes an underfunded social-care system as well as the determination and inventiveness of its workers . . . This fine novel is reminiscent of A Change of Climate, Hilary Mantel's novel of 1994, with its shifting perspectives and emphasis on a single, life-altering event. The far-ranging human story in Lean Fall Stand simultaneously unfolds and enfolds. --The Economist Stunning . . . Readers will be drawn into Robert and Anna's heartbreaking struggle, all rendered in McGregor's crystalline language. This gorgeous work leaves an indelible mark. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) A quiet, beautiful novel that's at once deeply sad and wryly funny. Lyrical and terse, funny and tragic--a marvelous addition to the McGregor canon. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Utterly original. Jaw-dropping. Lean Fall Stand is the sort of book you'll think about for ages." --Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water Lean Fall Stand is a bold and masterful investigation into the weather system of the human mind." --Max Porter "Exceptional. Starts as an Antarctic adventure, and turns into an exploration of courage, illness, marriage and compassion. So moving, and the use of language is remarkable. I absolutely loved it." --David Nicholls "Jon McGregor has crafted a unique narrative, encompassing frozen wastes & altered interior landscapes. Lean Fall Stand is the most gripping piece of writing I've read in a long time: Sit. Read. Applaud." --Jarvis Cocker Lean Fall Stand is a spectacular book. So moving and delicate and terrifying and haunting; such a skillful evocation of our fragility and strength. It does what Jon McGregor does so well: examine the widening ripples of a single event. I read it again, as soon as I'd finished. --Maggie O'Farrell In the opening pages of Lean Fall Stand one of the main characters puzzles how to capture the incomprehensible vastness of Antarctica in a still photograph. He needs something for scale, something our puny human minds can latch onto to help us understand, and the struggle to communicate properly what we need each other to see and hear becomes the thematic through line for the book. I loved every sentence of this haunting novel. --Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes
