Falling Hour

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZETHE GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 30 CANADIAN BOOKS TO READ IN 2023CBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023All talk, no action: The Mezzanine meets Ducks, Newburyport in this meandering and captivating debut Its a hot summer night, and Hugh Dalgarno, a 31-year-old clerical worker, thinks his brain is broken. Over the course of a day and night in an uncannily depopulated public park, he will sift through the pieces and traverse the baroque landscape of his own thoughts: the theology of nosiness, the beauty of the arbutus tree, the pathos of Gene Hackman, the theory of quantum immortality, Louis Riels letter to an Irish newspaper, the baleful influence of Calvinism on the Scottish working class, the sea, the CIA, and, ultimately, thinking itself and how it may be represented in writing. The result is a strange, meandering sojourn, as if the history-haunted landscapes of W. G. Sebalds The Rings of Saturn were shrunk down to a mere 85 acres. These digressions are anchored by remarks from the letters of Keats, by snatches of lyrics from Irish rebel songs and Scottish folk ballads, and, above all else, by the world-shattering call of the red-winged blackbird.From the first page to the last I felt wholly captivated byFalling Hourand Hughs sensitive and far-ranging digressions. Morrison has captured the magic of Sebald and made it entirely his own, a curiously anti-capitalist exploration of what it means to live in a fake country. Andr Babyn, author ofEvie of the DeepthornFalling Houris a profound incantatory exhalation a quiet triumph; to read it is to engage in a smart, humane and at times very funny conversation that you will never want to end.Simon Okotie, author ofAfter AbsalonA stellar debut novel by a stellar new talent. Falling Hour is written in a prose style that enlivens every page. Mauro Javier Crdenas, author of Aphasia: A NovelFalling Hour deserves mention as a notable debut along the estuary of modern fiction. D. W. White, Atticus Books, Phoemix, AZ