If I Fall, If I Die

Michael Christie

Muddled as to whether it’s trying to be a coming of age story, a boy’s adventure tale or a psychological investigation of anxiety and agoraphobia this, nonetheless, is so beautifully written that you forgive the jumbled themes and simply love the characters. Delicious descriptions and an unsettling mother/son relationship saw me race to the end with a satisfied sigh.

Extract

In the weeks after his jaunt Outside, a clutch of nine minutes Will had rekindled over and over with perfect dives of fragrant memory, the house seemed infiltrated, altered, both unfamiliar and familiar, disgusting and comforting, like a wetsuit he’d been wearing for a year.

Parallels