Author(s): Keiran Goddard

Fiction

Told through the alternating perspectives of five childhood friends from the same housing estate in England, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning is a story about friendship, place, loss, addiction and the ways in which lives, minds, and bodies can be limited by material conditions; it also speaks powerfully to the ways in which humor, loyalty, and family can bestow meaning and life even in the toughest circumstances.

Only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn't stop him from 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. Things are looking up for Conor, but he is never too far away from chaos. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, always the calm in the eye of the storm, but even they are rocked when old secrets begin to open new wounds.

Bold, ambitious, and stylistically striking, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning lays bare the economic, psychological, and spiritual impact of poverty, explores the redeeming and transforming beauty of friendship and examines the true limits of hope and forgiveness.