Granta pre-empts O'Regan's 'haunting' debut novel

Granta Books has pre-empted Though the Bodies Fall, a "haunting" debut novel from new Irish fiction writer Noel O’Regan.

Associate publishing director Laura Barber acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, including audio, from Euan Thorneycroft at A M Heath, for publication in autumn 2023. 

Though the Bodies Fall is the story of man who finds himself drawn back to his family home at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. "It is a picturesque location, but the cliffs are also a suicide black spot, and from a young age Micheál was involved in his mother’s mission to save these troubled souls," the synopsis reads. "Now, as an adult, his life in ruins, he feels compelled in the same way, to keep a constant look out for the ‘visitors’, to try to talk them down. When his two sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past."

Barber said: "This is a novel that exerts an uncanny pull: the bleak beauty of its setting, the tugging sense of sadness and peril, the weight of a life burdened by duty and regret, and the slow kindling of something like redemption. It is rare to read a debut of such poise and steady grace at the level of the line, but Noel’s writing has that magical quality of being powerfully resonant without being loud, and we are excited to be welcoming him to the Granta list with such a haunting debut."

O’Regan was raised in Co Kerry in the south-west of Ireland and has worked as a literary editor and festival host. He has received the Sean Dunne Young Writer Award, was a winner in the Bridport Short Story Prize, and was named Kerry County Council writer in residence. His fiction has been published in the Stinging Fly, Ambit and Southword. 

"It’s almost beyond belief, to me, that my novel has found a home at Granta, a publisher I’ve long since admired, and who house many of my favourite writers," he said. "I also feel like I’ve found a writer’s dream of a champion in Laura Barber, someone who, in true Granta spirit, has shown herself to care passionately about Micheál, the visitors and the entire world of Though the Bodies Fall. I’m incredibly excited to be going on this journey with her and the wider Granta team."