Field Notes from an Extinction

​""Eoghan Walls’s Field Notes from an Extinction is ingeniously rendered as ​a series of transmissions from an ornithologist stepping out of the shadows of his isolation to confront and contend with a creature beyond his realm of expertise: a human child. A historical novel that at times reads like a post-apocalyptic novel, in the best sense. Harrowing, shapeshifting, a strange and mesmerizing delight from the first page to the last.​"" —Kevin Moffett, National Book Award-longlisted author of Only Son ""Vividly told, original in form, ambitious in scope and completely winning in its characterisation of the unlikely pair at its centre, a devoted English ornithologist and the young Irish girl he is saddled with against his will, Field Notes From an Extinction winds tighter and tighter its noose of horror until almost unbearable – a stark and compelling tale. Eoghan Walls has immaculate comic timing and the heart of a tragedian who knows how to bide his time – and land his gut-punches."" —Lucy Caldwell, Author of These Days, and Multitudes; winner of the BBC Short Story Award and the Rooney Prize for Literature ""I read Field Notes from an Extinction in one sitting, incapable of tearing myself away. Rarely have I read a contemporary novel that works so gracefully and yet so implacably on so many levels—dramatically, emotionally, and morally. It is a major accomplishment.""​ —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, winner of the National Medal of the Humanities and author of The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us ""Told from Ignatius’s prickly perspective, the novel’s interplay between emotion, empathy, and humor is deft and compelling."" —Foreword Reviews