Small Rain
by Garth Greenwell
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Pub Date 19 Sep 2024 | Archive Date 19 Sep 2024
Pan Macmillan | Picador
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Description
'A marvelous novel: exceptionally vivid, real, and true' Colm Tóibín, author of Long island
'A novel that is fundamentally about the beauty of life' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
A medical crisis brings one man close to death – and to love, art, and beauty – in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell.
A poet’s life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.
This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value – art, memory, poetry, music, care – are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind.
Advance Praise
'Small Rain is a marvelous novel: exceptionally vivid, real, and true. Garth Greenwell’s sensibility is rich and generous – the narrator's memories are haunting, and his experiences of both illness and love are deeply affecting. You are in the room with him. This is a true achievement, written with engaged humanity and a great command of style.' Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island
'A fierce, beautiful novel about loving, living, dying, caring and being cared for. Greenwell’s sentences crackle with contained energy.' Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater
'Greenwell writes tenderly about what it is to be subject to the crises of the body. Small Rain is a document of searching, an interrogation of love, care, and time, daring in its refusal to be abstract about the concrete facts of life and death.' Raven Leilani, author of Luster
'I’ve never read anything that so vividly captures the helplessness of a hospital stay. Greenwell weaves moments of clear-eyed misanthropy into a novel that is fundamentally about the beauty of life. Small Rain is claustrophobic, terrifying, soaringly philosophic. It will make you notice that you are alive, which is maybe the most important thing a book can do.' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
'I just didn't put it down . . . very romantic, incredibly moving' Miranda July, author of All Fours
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781509874699 |
| PRICE | £18.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 320 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Joanna R, Educator
4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Wow! This novel had me holding my breath from the first page. A concise and extremely well-written depiction of a man facing a potentially life-threatening condition in the ICU. Structurally, it works well with his memories interspersed between the detailed description of his time in ICU. Lots of reflection on music and art and especially poetry and the impactvotbhas on his life. Throught there is reference to his surviving the disease/condition.
Personally, I really don't like injections and generally being in a hospital makes me feel uncomfortable. The intensively detailed descriptions of the invasive experiences triggered that 'urghhhhh' feeling but I take that as a sign of excellent writing.
I deducted 0.5* for the ending.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a proof.
Isabel C, Reviewer
I am a huge admirer of Greenwell's work although I preferred his debut What Belongs To You to his second novel. This third one has an extra depth and urgency which I would barely have thought possible. I was completely transfixed and invested in the narrator's (clearly autobiographical) brush with death and entire revisiting of what it means and consists of to be alive. This is a profoundly philosophical novel of great humanity, openness and vulnerability. It resonated strongly with me on a personal level, prompting sometimes uncomfortable reflections, and I'm sure that will be the case for many readers. That is the sign of a good novel. I do think his editor should have pushed back on the very long, dry poetry analysis which felt like an unwelcome distraction at one point.
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