Shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature 2025
The disquieting story of an unidentified man as told by those who crossed paths with him on the last day of his life, Sheila Armstrong’s debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspenseful.
On an isolated, windswept beach, a pale figure sits serenely against a sand dune staring out to sea. His hands are folded neatly in his lap and there is a faint smile on his otherwise lifeless face. After months of fruitless investigation, the nameless stranger is buried in an unmarked grave, but the mystery of his life and death lingers on, drawing the nearby villagers into its wake.
From strandings to shipwrecks, it is not the first time that strangeness has washed up on their shores. As a chorus of voices come together to unravel the story of one man, alone on a beach, a crosshatched portrait begins to emerge, threaded by lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present.
Sheila Armstrong is a writer from the north-west of Ireland. She is the author of How To Gut A Fish, a collection of short stories, and Falling Animals, a novel. She has been nominated for the Irish Book Awards, the Society of Authors Awards, the Kate O’Brien Award, the Edge Hill Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. She was chosen as an Arts Council Next Generation Artist and an An Post Best New Irish Writer. She is working on her second novel.