If I Fall, If I Die
  • Published: 12 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9781473505209
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

If I Fall, If I Die

Formats & editions
EBook
12 Feb 2015
Paperback
1 Mar 2016
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A heartfelt and wondrous debut lauded by Philipp Meyer (New York Times bestselling author of The Son) as "astonishing", introducing a supremely gifted and exciting new voice in fiction.

A heartfelt and wondrous debut lauded by Philipp Meyer (New York Times bestselling author of The Son) as "astonishing", introducing a supremely gifted and exciting new voice in fiction.

Will has never been to the outside, at least not since he can remember.

And he has certainly never got to know anyone other than his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentric agoraphobe who drowns in panic at the thought of opening the front door. Their little world comprises only the rooms in their home, each named for various exotic locales and filled with Will's art projects. But soon the confines of his world close in on him.

Despite his mother's protests, Will ventures outside clad in a protective helmet and braces himself for danger. He eventually meets and befriends Jonah, a quiet boy who introduces him to skateboarding.

Will welcomes his new world with enthusiasm, his fears fading and his body hardening with each new bump, scrape and fall. But life quickly gets complicated. When a local boy goes missing, Will and Jonah want to uncover what happened. They embark on an extraordinary adventure that pulls Will far from the confines of his closed-off world and into the throes of early adulthood and the dangers that everyday life offers.

If I Fall, If I Die is a remarkable debut full of dazzling prose and unforgettable characters, as well as a poignant and heartfelt depiction of coming of age.
  • Published: 12 February 2015
  • ISBN: 9781473505209
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
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About the author

Michael Christie

Michael Christie is the author of the novel If I Fall, If I Die, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Kirkus Prize, was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice, and was on numerous best of 2015 lists. His linked collection of stories, The Beggar's Garden, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and won the Vancouver Book Award. His essays and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Globe and Mail. A former carpenter and homeless shelter worker, he divides his time between Victoria, British Columbia, and Galiano Island, where he lives with his wife and two sons in a timber frame house that he built himself.

portrait photo of Michael Christie

Praise for If I Fall, If I Die

An astonishing piece of work. Christie combines lyrical prose and true-to-life characters—and skateboarding—to craft a remarkable tale of mothers and sons, and what it means to grow up.

Philipp Meyer, author of The Son

If I Fall, If I Die is an expertly crafted work of great heart and sensitivity. I can’t recall a truer or more beautiful debut.

Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers

A bruiser of a tale, one you will feel in your shins and your solar plexus. Michael Christie is a virtuosic prose stylist and boy is he so very wise and so funny on families and friendships, fear and joy, and the physics of sky and pavement. If I Fall, If I Die is a death-defying coming of age story; it’s also as weird and as convincing a love story as I have ever read. And so beautifully told that you’ll want to pass it on immediately.

Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!

This exceptional debut novel is a warm, often funny dramatisation of the balance between anxious love and worthwhile risk

Sunday Times

A lyrically descriptive tale with an endearing young protagonist

Choice magazine

Beautiful … [a] wonderful, quirky, eccentric book full of wit and spectacular prose. If you are looking for a unique read which you can immerse yourself in, with stimulating language and characters to latch on to and love, then If I Fall, If I Die needs to be your next book purchase. A book that I will go back to and read again and a stunning first novel from Michael Christie. A wonderful treasure of a book.

Duffythewriter

The reader alternates between knowing more than the characters and searching to unravel the mystery, with creative prose and incremental pay-offs, the 300 pages of Christie’s captivating debut novel fly by

Press Association syndicated review

A master of his environment, Christie is also deft at inhabiting the mind of a child in his writing … powerful and page-turning … A first novel that is complex, symbolic and a little bit wondrous.

Sunday Business Post

There are moments of real tenderness, and real strangeness too, as Will gradually embraces risk and seeks friendship. It feels less part of some sub-genre cooked up by the marketing department than a contribution to a real, archetypal literary tradition, that of the coming-of-age story.

Spectator

A captivating debut novel

Scotsman