Mark Haddon

The Pier Falls is the first collection of short stories from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Written in a new, darker register, Haddon's stories range from Ancient Greece to the Amazon jungle to the surface of Mars. A thirty stone man is confined to his living room. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve. Haddon has said that the stories are all bound together by "an empathy for sometimes unlovable people in difficult situations". He will read from these new stories and discuss the art of short form writing.