Mark Haddon reads from and talks about his debut story collection, The Pier Falls. Why has it taken him so long to want to write in the short form and what were the stories that helped him to change his mind? https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109789/the-pier-falls/

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Mark Haddon – The Pier Falls

ASpectatorBook of the Year

An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong.

A seaside pier collapses.

A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room.

One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean.

Another woman is saved from drowning.

Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox.

A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle.

A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.

In this first collection of stories by the author ofThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeMark Haddon demonstrates two things: first that he is a master of the short form (several of the stories have been longlisted for prizes), second that his imagination is even darker than we had thought.

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