I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

A moving and lyrical novel about five friends whose lives are shaped by the brutality of a world that doesn't value them - and the very different choices they make

Five friends. Five lives. Countless hopes.

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2025

Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor grew up together. They played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of everything they''d do with their lives.

Now they are thirty, and only Rian has made it out of the estate and moved away to another city, but his money doesn''t stop him clinging to a vision of the past that is quickly slipping away. Oli is fading by the day, drinking and snorting his way through the endless boredom, while Conor has a baby on the way and a business plan he hopes will change everything. Patrick and Shiv are as in love as ever, but even they are rocked when an old secret opens up new wounds...

Bold, ambitious and stylistically striking, I See Buildings Fall like Lightning asks what happens when all the things we expect from our lives end up ... not happening. It lays bare the ways that place and circumstance shape us, explores the redeeming and transforming beauty of friendship and examines the true limits of hope and forgiveness.