- Published: 7 May 2022
- ISBN: 9781787332867
- Imprint: Jonathan Cape
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 256
- RRP: $55.00
Animal Person











- Published: 7 May 2022
- ISBN: 9781787332867
- Imprint: Jonathan Cape
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 256
- RRP: $55.00
The eight stories in Alexander MacLeod's excellent second collection, composed in crystalline prose, glimmer and gleam with yearning and loss, as strange longings overwhelm his finely-drawn characters.
Eithne Farry, Daily Mail
Exquisite.
New York Times
Mesmerising... MacLeod...explore[s] the absurdities and dislocations of twenty-first-century life.
James Moran, Tablet
Brilliantly unsettling.
Alison Kelly, Times Literary Supplement
A five-star book. I loved it. Eight short stories, each one satisfying and complete... They all have a kind of yearning, a voice that is intimate, often troubled, but each shines a light on relationships good and bad.
Claire Fuller
MacLeod's stories seemed startlingly strange, until I realised they were about my own life. A book full of truth, sadness and mercy.
Clare Pollard
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... They contain a rare kind of truthfulness.
Colm Toibin (on LIGHT LIFTING)
A thoughtful, beautifully crafted, big-hearted work.
Anne Enright (on LIGHT LIFTING)
Brilliant...engrossing, thrilling and ultimately satisfying: each story has the weight of a novel.
Economist (on LIGHT LIFTING)
Taut to a point of richness, deft in the dark, with an understanding of narrative suspense that's somehow actually beautiful, Light Lifting is a powerful collection and the debut of a writer clearly a master of the form.
Ali Smith (on LIGHT LIFTING)
Alexander MacLeod looks like a heavyweight in the making.
Irish Times (on LIGHT LIFTING)