Keiran Goddard will be in conversation with Bookseller Crow on Thursday 2nd May, 7.30pm. Tickets are £5 and include a drink.

I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING is a moving and lyrical novel about five friends whose lives are shaped by the brutality of a world that doesn’t value them – and the very different choices they make. Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they’d do with their lives. Now they are thirty, and only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn’t stop him clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away. Oli is fading by the day, drinking and snorting his way through the endless boredom, while Conor has a baby on the way and a business plan he hopes will change everything. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, but even they are rocked when an old secret opens up new wounds…Bold, ambitious and stylistically striking, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning asks what happens when all the things we expect from our lives end up… not happening. It lays bare the ways that place and circumstance shape us, explores the redeeming and transforming beauty of friendship and examines the true limits of hope and forgiveness. Praise for Hourglass: ‘This book glows in the heart of the reader’ Max Porter ‘This book is such a sneaky head f*ck -an epic poem in an ancient style about the brutalities of modern love, a masculine interrogation of feminine heartbreak, a really beautiful way to spend an evening’ Lena Dunham

Keiran Goddard grew up in Shard End, Birmingham in a working-class family. He is the author of one poetry pamphlet, two full-length poetry collections and the novel Hourglass. His debut collection was shortlisted for the Melita Hume Prize, he was the runner up in the William Blake Prize and Hourglass was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize. He speaks internationally on issues related to social change and currently develops research on workers’ rights, the future of work, automation and trade unionism through his role at the Alex Ferry Foundation.

‘A virtuosic and devastating exploration of the relationships that bind us, and the places that always call us back.’ Sophie Mackintosh

‘Intimate with its surprises, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning has an honesty that shows us how to love one another and hold on to what matters most’ Tice Cin

‘This heartfelt, gut-wrenching novel confirms Goddard as one of the best writers of our time’ Lucia Osborne-Crowley

‘Keiran Goddard can make you laugh and weep in the same paragraph. This is such a humane, beautiful novel about being from a place you can neither leave nor stay in’ Heather Parry