Defenestrate: The debut to fall for in 2023

The 'hypnotic...addictive' (New York Times) debut novel narrated by a young woman meditating on the malleable, breakable bonds keeping her family from falling apart. There's a superstition in our family about falling... Marta's great-great-grandfather Jirí was said to have given a gentle push to the back of a stonemason for having wronged him. The stonemason fell to his death and the family fled Prague for the American Midwest, where they set up a new life. So begins the story of Marta and her brother Nick, deeply interwoven twins haunted by the mysterious curse that has plagued their family for centuries - one that has doomed them to suffer various types of falls. When Nick tumbles out of a window and ends up seriously injured, Marta must embark on a heartbreaking quest to discover whether or not his fall was intentional, and to stop her family from falling apart... 'Wonderful...with an idiosyncratic humour that reminded me of Ottessa Moshfegh' Daily Telegraph'Original and engaging' Guardian 'Lights up the imagination' Dina Nayeri