Nothing On Earth

The critically acclaimed psychological chiller from a powerful new voice in Irish literary fiction.

I greatly admired Conor O'Callaghan's Nothing on Earth, as fine as it is frightening

An original story, brilliantly told . . . extraordinary, low-key and pitch-perfect

This one will stay with you like your shadow, as hard to shake off and as impossible to pin down.

Strange, beautiful and quietly terrifying

Quite extraordinary . . . like many great works, it could so easily have all gone wrong if it hadn’t been done exactly right. All that can be done is to give it the highest recommendation: read it, and find out for yourself

O’Callaghan’s stylish, dark yarn triumphs through the clarity of his prose and confident handling of ambivalence at its most menacing

Strange and beguiling . . . very well written, conjuring up a weird listless world

[P]owerfully haunting . . . horror of the most resonant kind . . . Nothing on Earth is less than two hundred pages long, yet its implications and reverberations carry more weight than many novels three times its length.

Beautifully written and carefully crafted

. . . extremely self-assured . . . a haunting debut with subtle horror tones . . . backed by O’Callaghan’s remarkable writing prowess

A stunning, haunting, thrilling and unsettling story

A total curveball, Conor O’Callaghan’s book is extraordinary

Ominous and fearful . . . this striking debut is a psychological chiller that cleverly resonates with modern concerns

[A] subtly chilling story. . . leaves the reader with an uncomfortable sense of trepidation

Brilliant and disturbing...The challenge of making Irish Gothic contemporary has just been met superbly

Conor O'Callaghan is originally from Dundalk, and now divides his time between Dublin and the North of England. This is his first novel.

The critically acclaimed psychological chiller from a powerful new voice in Irish literary fiction. 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2017 
 
'As fine as it is frightening' JOHN BANVILLE 
 
'This one will stay with you like your shadow' Guardian 
 
'Extraordinary . . . pitch-perfect' Irish Times 
 
'Strange, beautiful and quietly terrifying' DONAL RYAN, author of The Spinning Heart 
 
'Like many great works, it could so easily have all gone wrong if it hadn’t been done exactly right' Sunday Independent 
 
 
It is the hottest August in living memory. 
 
 A frightened girl bangs on a door. A man answers. From the moment he invites her in, his world will never be the same again. 
 
 She will tell him about her family, and their strange life in the show home of an abandoned housing estate. The long, blistering days spent sunbathing; the airless nights filled with inexplicable noises; the words that appear on the windows, written in dust. 
 
Why are members of her family disappearing, one by one? Is she telling the truth? Is he? 
 
In a world where reality is beginning to blur, how can we know what to believe?

Conor O'Callaghan

‘compelling and profoundly moving’ Irish Times

'Stylish, deft...an absolutely fascinating novel' Guardian 
 
'Haunting, mesmerising, and so deeply intelligent' Kamila Shamsie, author of Women's Prize for Fiction winning Home Fire 
 
'Powerful...compelling and profoundly moving' Irish Times 
 
'Heartbreaking, sweetly logical and tentatively hopeful' Spectator 
 
Heartbroken after a long, painful love affair, a man drives a haulage lorry from England to France. Travelling with him is a secret passenger - his daughter. Twenty-something, unkempt, off the rails. 
 
With a week on the road together, father and daughter must restore themselves and each other, and repair a relationship that is at once fiercely loving and deeply scarred. 
 
As they journey south, down the motorways, through the service stations, a devastating picture reveals itself: a story of grief, of shame, and of love in all its complex, dark and glorious manifestations. 
______________ 
 
What readers are saying: 
***** 'The prose is sublime and deeply moving . . . a stunning novel' 
***** 'Beautifully written, lyrical and unsettling in its exploration of human frailties, family, love, and loss, grief' 
**** 'A haunting, tragic and highly original story of a father and daughter travelling across England and France in a haulage truck, and discovering more about their relationship and past in all its raw candour' 
 
 
MORE PRAISE FOR WE ARE NOT IN THE WORLD: 
'Unusual, utterly original and mysterious . . . a must read' Elaine Feeney 
'...the book stays with you, a haunting presence you cannot - and do not want to - escape...astounding.' Ruth Gilligan Extraordinary...achingly sad and tender and sexy, and the writing is very beautiful.' Louise Kennedy 
'Wonderful, wrenching . . . full of enormous feelings very precisely rendered' Sara Baume 
'Elusive, unsettling, beautiful, haunting. This is a complex, devastating study of human relations; a portrait of intense love and damage in equal measure.' Lisa Harding 
'A whirlpool of memories, regrets and hopes' Tim Pears 
'An uncanny ability to turn the seemingly insignificant into something monumental' Jan Carson

Conor O'Callaghan

Books by Conor O'Callaghan

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