A Line Made by Walking (limited edition hardback)

Limited edition hardback.

‘I’m okay in my own bones, but I know that my bones aren’t living up to other people’s version of what a life should be, and I feel a little crushed by that, to be honest, a little confused as to how to align the two things: to be an acceptable member of society but to be able to be my own bones both at once.’

 

25-year-old Frankie is living in Dublin and working part-time in a public gallery. But increasingly anxious, she abruptly quits her bedsit to live in her deceased grandmother’s creaking house in rural Ireland, close to her family. With an artist’s gift for observation, Frankie recounts the beauty and the obliteration of the world as the seasons change around her, from roadkill to kitchen curios, all the while struggling to understand her place in it.

Shortlisted for the 2017 Goldsmiths Prize, this tour-de-force follow-up to Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a celebration of the extraordinary in the everyday, and Baume’s prose elevates the ordinary and finds inspiration in the strange.

 

‘Here is a novel of uniqueness, wonder, recognition, poignancy, truth-speaking, quiet power, strange beauty and luminous bedazzlement. Once again, I’ve been Baumed.’ – Joseph O’Connor

‘When I finished Sara Baume’s new novel I immediately felt sad that I could not send it in the post to the late John Berger.  He, too, would have loved it and found great joy in its honesty, its agility, its beauty, its invention.  Baume is a writer of outstanding grace and style.  She writes beyond the time we live in.’ – Colum McCann

‘I was hypnotised’ – Rick O’Shea

‘Unflinching, at times uncomfortable, and always utterly compelling, A Line Made By Walking is among the best accounts of grief, loneliness and depression that I have ever read.’ – Lucy Caldwell

‘Fascinating because of the cumulative power of the precise, pleasingly rhythmic sentences, and the unpredictable intelligence of the narrator’s mind.’ – The Guardian

Praise for Spill Simmer Falter Wither

‘Utterly wonderful. It’s the most impressive debut novel I’ve read in years.’ Joseph O’Connor

‘Instils fear and wonder’ The Observer

‘An exceptional, startling, and original book’ Colin Barrett