Lean Fall Stand
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Lean Fall Stand
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Narrated by:
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Matt Bates
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By:
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Jon McGregor
About this listen
A WHITE REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR
‘It leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story’ Hilary Mantel
The highly anticipated new novel from the Costa-award winning, three-times Booker-longlisted author of Reservoir 13.
When an Antarctic research expedition goes wrong, the consequences are far-reaching – for the men involved and for their families back home.
Robert "Doc" Wright, a veteran of Antarctic field work, holds the clues to what happened, but he is no longer able to communicate them. While Anna, his wife, navigates the sharp contours of her new life as a carer, Robert is forced to learn a whole new way to be in the world.
Award-winning novelist Jon McGregor returns with a stunning novel that mesmerizingly and tenderly unpicks the notion of heroism and explores the indomitable human impulse to tell our stories – even when words fail us. A meditation on the line between sacrifice and selfishness this is a story of the undervalued, unrecognised courage it can take just to get through the day.
’So moving and delicate and terrifying and haunting’ Maggie O’Farrell
©2021 Jon McGregor (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
‘Gripping, moving, magnificent’ Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
‘Jon McGregor has crafted a unique narrative, encompassing frozen wastes & altered interior landscapes. The most gripping piece of writing I’ve read in a long time: Sit. Read. Applaud’ Jarvis Cocker
‘Utterly original. Jaw-dropping. The sort of book you’ll think about for ages’ Paula Hawkins, author of Girl on the Train
‘Another McGregor novel that, beneath its serene surface, takes huge risks … Fortunately, it’s also another McGregor novel that triumphantly gets away with it’ The Times
‘Opens as excitingly as any work of fiction I’ve recently read … It’s extraordinarily tense and atmospheric – and McGregor’s prose is tight as a wire’ Telegraph
‘Exceptional. … So moving, and the use of language is remarkable. I absolutely loved it’ David Nicholls, author of Sweet Sorrow
‘A genuinely fascinating book and a troubling, riveting reading experience. A bold and masterful investigation into the weather system of the human mind’ Max Porter, author of The Death of Francis Bacon
‘A genuine masterpiece: poised, multilayered and full of the most astonishingly beautiful prose’ Alex Preston, Observer
‘McGregor’s precise, well-judged prose attests to both the power of language and to the havoc created by its loss’ Financial Times
What listeners say about Lean Fall Stand
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ricci
- 05-06-21
Not A Gripping Drama Set In Antarctica
NB this novel is in three parts: Lean, Fall and Stand. Lean is a gripping drama set in Antarctica. But Fall and Stand are the story of recovering what you can after **Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert** a stroke. Taken as a whole the novel is a coherent narrative, but if you want an ice-bound adventure, give up after Lean. Please don’t though. You’ll be missing out on what Jon McGregor is brilliant at, why we all need him so much, why I guzzle up his books as soon as I hear about him. Here’s an example: one of the characters has a stroke. Most writers, at that point, would move the first person perspective away from that character. The perspective has been switching between the characters anyway. But McGregor continues - in turn - seeing the world as that character, even as words and sense begin ebbing away. One of McGregor’s hallmarks is writing proper, carefully considered gibberish where it’s required. Another is repetition; another is a generally slow pace. You need patience. Then, in this novel anyway, Jon McGregor takes you, with honest, deliberate thoroughness, into one of your dark places, with a candle.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 09-05-22
Not quite what I was expecting
The book was beautifully narrated. However the story, having been heralded as an Antarctic adventure, was largely about the rehabilitation of a stroke patient. Well written and empathetic but not really what I was hoping for.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- tracey pashley
- 01-05-21
Communication
Never has there been so many ways to communicate, and never has there been such a lack of communication. Excellent book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Wodworm
- 17-05-24
Profoundly moving
Profoundly moving to listen to. The breakdown of language, the frustration, sadness, humour and pathos were beautifully enhanced by the narration.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Laurance
- 23-03-23
Disappointing
The beginning is enthralling as one really experience the confusion fear helplessness of a storm in the attic and it could have been so much more but as one reader said… the next chapters are so repetitive and dull , the character of the wife is so barely sketched. I really expected better .
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Frank
- 11-05-21
Sorry, not for me
I managed 10 chapters, skipping bits, before giving up. I found it slow and depressing
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 30-08-22
Not at all enjoyable - so relieved to get to the end
I know the whole book was a metaphor for how life has no easy answers and how dreadful to lose the ability to communicate but to have to endure the suffering and participate in it was truly dreadful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- discerning reader
- 21-06-22
somewhat overwrought and overwritten
The first part is a gripping account of a slowly unfolding disaster. The second part shifts to another character, the protagonist's wife as joyless and dutiful as he is. The inch by inch account of a man trying to recover from a stroke is true to life but my it does go on! Were there any shards of light in the darkeming gloom? Maybe in the pages I skipped? Thought provoking nevertheless-is a man's life less meaningful when his brain is shattered than when he is slavishly following self-imposed exile from the human race? Should be called Stand Fall Lean to follow his journey back to leaning on others.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- susan lowes
- 12-05-22
don't bother
exciting opening chapter. then increasingly dull. felt cheated as there was so little story and the therapy sessions which consumed 2/3rds of the book were lazy, ill informed, repetitive writing.
will no longer read his other novels as I had planned to after first few chapters.
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