Some Rain Must Fall - (Harvest Original) by Michel Faber (Paperback)

About the Book

Winner of the Saltire Prize for best first work of Scottish fiction, here is a story collection by "a hot new talent, a master of the short story form" ("The Times Literary Supplement").

Book Synopsis

Michel Faber's short stories are markedly diverse-the voice of each is so distinct that the book reads like an anthology of different writers. But Faber's radically inventive style fastens all fifteen stories into a compelling collection deserving of the high praise it garnered in the United Kingdom. One surreal story, "Fish," projects a futuristic world populated with fish swimming in the air. As sharks hover in abandoned corners and human zealots of the Church of the Armageddon loose their fanaticism on the innocent, it's a mother's full-time job to protect her young daughter. The title story, "Some Rain Must Fall, " tells of a substitute schoolteacher called on in a crisis, and as she encourages her pupils to express their feelings, we learn the source of the class's trouble: a devastating act that resonates with contemporary America. As Garth Morris wrote in the Mail on Sunday (London), "these are well-crafted pieces of quiet forlorn intensity in a very real world."

Review Quotes

"His sense of wonder and big-heartedness calls to mind the better stories of Ray Bradbury, and he has a wonderful ability to push a whimsy to its extreme with magical results."-The Independent (London)


"You don't often see satire stirred with so humane a hand, or tragedy handled with so light a touch."-The Guardian (London)


"Young writers are meant to have a strong, individual new voice. Michel Faber doesn't: he has a whole host of them. . . . Some Rain Must Fall has an astonishing variety of themes, characters, and styles."-Duncan McLean