Keiran Goddard – författare

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.

*NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING ANTHONY BOYLE, JOE COLE, JAY LYCURGO, DARYL MCCORMACK AND LOLA PETTICREW - RELEASE DATE TO COME*LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025'Shows us how to love one another and hold on to what matters most' Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House'Striking, moving, subtly radical' Guardian'Confirms Goddard as one of the best writers of our time' Lucia Osborne-Crowley, author of The Lasting HarmPatrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they'd do with their lives.Now they are thirty, and only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn't stop him clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away. Oli is fading by the day, drinking and snorting his way through the endless boredom, while Conor has a baby on the way and a business plan he hopes will change everything. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, but even they are rocked when an old secret opens up new wounds ...

Even the greyest world contains within it more colour than a mortal heart can bear.1973. In a plain room in St Augustine's Home for the Aged and Infirm, Chicago, a life is drawing to a close. Isolated and eccentric, Henry Darger has spent his days shuffling between his apartment, daily Mass and the hospital where he worked as a janitor, occasionally scouring bins and kerbsides for newspaper clippings and treasures to add to his collection.The world has not noticed Henry Darger. But he has noticed the world - seen the seismic changes industrialisation and urbanisation have brought to twentieth-century America; seen two world wars, hypocrisy, violence and loss of innocence. And finding the outside world to be little more than a vista of cruelty and concrete, he has dedicated his life to creating his own: a vast universe in which the Vivian Girls fight against the forces of evil in the Realms of the Unreal ...Unknown during his lifetime, Darger's work is now considered to be an iconic example of American outsider art, its apocalyptic visions as disturbing as they are compelling. Fill the World takes us deep into the mind of its creator, in a novel that is shocking, mysterious and ablaze with otherworldly colour.

Even the greyest world contains within it more colour than a mortal heart can bear.1973. In a plain room in St Augustine's Home for the Aged and Infirm, Chicago, a life is drawing to a close. Isolated and eccentric, Henry Darger has spent his days shuffling between his apartment, daily Mass and the hospital where he worked as a janitor, occasionally scouring bins and kerbsides for newspaper clippings and treasures to add to his collection.The world has not noticed Henry Darger. But he has noticed the world - seen the seismic changes industrialisation and urbanisation have brought to twentieth-century America; seen two world wars, hypocrisy, violence and loss of innocence. And finding the outside world to be little more than a vista of cruelty and concrete, he has dedicated his life to creating his own: a vast universe in which the Vivian Girls fight against the forces of evil in the Realms of the Unreal ...Unknown during his lifetime, Darger's work is now considered to be an iconic example of American outsider art, its apocalyptic visions as disturbing as they are compelling, Fill the World takes us deep into the mind of its creator, in a novel that is shocking, mysterious and ablaze with otherworldly colour.

'A universal love story' Guardian'Beautiful and very funny' Brett Anderson'This book glows in the heart of the reader' Max Porter'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 DunhamThe second time you came, we went from bar to bar to bar. It made the city feel smaller. Like a map we were folding to the size of a stamp. We were good at that. We could have fit an entire universe inside a matchbox. 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.'Hourglass will stay with me for a long time. Hypnotic' Lemn Sissay'Evocative, ecstatic and saturated with off-kilter wit' Alexandra Kleeman

Five friends. Five lives. Countless hopes. LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they'd do with their lives.Now they are thirty, and only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn't stop him clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away. Oli is fading by the day, drinking and snorting his way through the endless boredom, while Conor has a baby on the way and a business plan he hopes will change everything. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, but even they are rocked when an old secret opens up new wounds...Bold, ambitious and stylistically striking, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning asks what happens when all the things we expect from our lives end up ... not happening. It lays bare the ways that place and circumstance shape us, explores the redeeming and transforming beauty of friendship and examines the true limits of hope and forgiveness.