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Light Lifting

Light Lifting

Light Lifting is a suite of darkly urban, unflinching elegies. The seven stories each encompass a keenly observed, immersive world, rooted firmly in the real life of work and family. They are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty and love and moments of pure transcendence.

Reviews

  • A thoughtful, beautifully crafted, big-hearted work

    Anne Enright

  • Alexander MacLeod's control of cadence and rhythm is so complete that it seems effortless. These stories offer a real pleasure which comes from the sense of life and emotional honesty in them. The pleasure also comes from their beautiful tone and something in the voice which is both relaxed and perfect. They contain a rare kind of truthfulness.

    Colm Tóibín

  • Every so often a new writer comes along with a true gift for language...an elegant, conversational simplicity

    LA Times

  • Outstanding

    Suzi Feay, Independent

  • Brilliant...engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the weight of a novel

    The Economist

More from this Author

About the Author

Alexander MacLeod

Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton in Canada. His first collection, Light Lifting, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won an Atlantic Book Award. In 2019, he won an O Henry Prize for his short story, 'Lagomorph', originally published in Granta, and the first story in Animal Person. MacLeod lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and teaches at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

Alexander MacLeod

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