Hi, and welcome to episode #70!
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 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.
About Jon’s latest novel Lean Fall Stand
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.
Lean Fall Stand, Jon McGregor (signed copies)
Lean Fall Stand UK book launch at Five Leaves Bookshop
A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann Ní Ghríofa