Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2014
208 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Following his magisterial To the End of the Land, the universally acclaimed Israeli author brings us an incandescent fable of parental grief - concise, elemental, a powerfully distilled experience of understanding and acceptance, and of art's triumph over death.
In Falling Out of Time, David Grossman has created a genre-defying drama - part play, part prose, pure poetry - to tell the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village, in a kitchen, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in search of their dead son. The man - called simply Walking Man - paces in ever-widening circles around the town. One after another, all manner of townsfolk fall into step with him (the Net-Mender, the Midwife, the Elderly Math Teacher, even the Duke), each enduring his or her own loss. The walkers raise questions of grief and bereavement: Can death be overcome by an intensity of speech or memory? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to call to the dead and free them from their death? Grossman's answer to such questions is a hymn to these characters, who ultimately find solace and hope in their communal act of breaching death's hermetic separateness. For the reader, the solace is in their clamorous vitality, and in the gift of Grossman's storytelling - a realm where loss is not merely an absence but a life force of its own.
"Starred Review. The precision and sensory depth of Grossman's language renders this unconventional work an unforgettable and magnificent document of suffering." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A potent fusion of poetry, fiction, and drama sweeps readers into very deep waters!" - Booklist
"Rich, lyrical, philosophically dense - not an easy work to take in but one that repays every effort." - Kirkus
"Grossman's lyrical approach to the silent suffering of mourning is both a literary study in processing grief and a reminder that healing often comes through the action of putting into words the pain we thought was unspeakable." - Library Journal
This information about Falling Out of Time was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and has been translated into thirty languages around the world. He is the recipient of many prizes, including the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome's Premio per la Pace e l'Azione Umitaria, the Premio Ischia- International Award for Journalism, Israel's Emet Prize, and the Albatross Prize given by the Günter Grass Foundation.
The Yellow Wind, his non-fiction study of the life of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip met with acclaim abroad but sparked controversy at home. Alongside Amos Oz, he has been one of the most prominent cultural ...
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
by Colleen Oakley
A “wildly surprising, entertaining ride of a novel.”
—Jodi Picoult
The Last Russian Doll
by Kristen Loesch
A haunting epic of betrayal, revenge, and redemption following three generations of Russian women.
Last House Before the Mountain by Monika Helfer
A spellbinding, internationally bestselling family saga set in a fractured rural village in WWI Austria.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
