I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning: A novel about love, class and friendship, for fans of Shuggie Bain and Mayflies
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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 Harm__________________________________________
Patrick, 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 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.
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PRAISE FOR I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING . . .
'Striking, moving, subtly radical' Guardian
'Earthy, multivocal and accomplished throughout' Daily Telegraph
'Tender and fierce in turn, Goddard writes about class and friendship with the deftest of touches' Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure
'One of the most beautiful novels I've read in a very long time, full of rare elegance, sorrow, wit and warmth, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning tells the story of what's left when dreaming feels impossible' Ali Millar, author of The Last Days
'I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has an honesty that shows us how to love one another and hold onto what matters most' Tice Cin, author of Keeping the House
'This is a novel full of hard material but infused with dignity and originality. The language is swaggering, the character development deeply subtle . . . genuinely beautiful' Niamh Campbell, author of We Were Young
'An enraging, enthralling and ultimately heart-breaking novel . . . it is a story about the ways such friendships can make you whole or can tear you in half' Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, au
Praise for I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning
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Shows us how to love one another and hold on to what matters most
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A virtuosic and devastating exploration of the relationships that bind us, and the places that always call us back. Tender and fierce in turn, Goddard writes about class and friendship with the deftest of touches.
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One of the most beautiful novels I've read in a very long time, full of rare elegance, sorrow, wit and warmth, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning tells the story of what's left when dreaming feels impossible
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This heartfelt, gut-wrenching novel confirms Goddard as one of the best writers of our time
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Keiran Goddard can make you laugh and weep in the same paragraph. This is such a humane, beautiful novel about being from a place you can neither leave nor stay in
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I found these characters and landscapes so achingly real, relatable and deftly, compassionately drawn. Keiran Goddard's is a mind-blowing talent, his writing so beautiful. I can't wait to read everything he ever publishes.
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The language is swaggering, the character development deeply subtle ... genuinely beautiful
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Enraging, enthralling and ultimately heart-breaking
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