An incredibly moving fictional foray into trying to overcome the odds. Lean Fall Stand starts out with an epic journey—and ends with an epic journey, but of a much different sort. McGregor captures trying to remap the neural networks after a stroke in such a masterful way, you feel you are right there, struggling alongside. Caregivers and families will immediately recognize the complex portrayal of their struggles and milestones as well. This is not an easy read—but well worth the journey.

Lean Fall Stand is a book divided into three sections with each representing a part of the title. It follows the Robert “Doc” Wright who has gone on exhibitions to Antarctica for years. He takes his assistants on a geographical survey there, and three end up stranded and alone after their radios fail. Communication has failed. The novel goes on to follow Wright after a stroke, and his wife is taking caring for him as he once again unable to communicate. The book had very little dialogue and seemed to struggle to find its footing in many places. A bit too many slow, dragging parts.

I don't have much to say about this, except to recommend it. The author is experienced and is a safe bet. There are hundreds of ratings and reviews already out there by smart readers if you want more info.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Lean Fall Stand begins with incredible intensity (5 stars to begin with!) and I could hardly put the book down! I felt the cold wind. I struggled with Doc to make sense of what had happened. I felt for his wife, Anna, as she experienced the exhaustion of Doc's rehabilitation. By the time I reached the third section, the group "therapy", I unfortunately began to lose interest. I needed to know what happened in Antarctica, and I didn't really care so much for the details about those other characters in the therapy group. I did find it satisfying that Doc's interaction with his various therapists led him to make sense of what happened in the storm, and perhaps brought closure to his family, and others involved in the horrific storm.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Lean Fall Stand.

“Refinery,” she said. “Refinery is the boiler to sieve again and again, do you see?”
“No wonder you enjoy watching horse racing on the television now.”
“Oh, yes!” agreed Raymond. “Yes, that’s right. Very good, very good!”
“Again, again, the coming noise upon,” said Peter, “And then we were and all upon us so we were, we were.”

Lean Fall Stand is an eloquent exploration of the difference between language skill and communication. The author extends us the courtesy of gently pointing out how all of us have stumbled over how to say exactly what we mean, how to put our thoughts into words.

I must admit I was hesitant to read this given that I worked as a speech therapist for many years, specializing in work with people who had had strokes.

Jon McGregor gives us a realistic, compassionate portrayal of the effects of a stroke on not only the patient but the person’s entire family. One of the most difficult parts of this devastating experience is the struggle the family has in coming to terms with the sequelae of the stroke. This book does an excellent job conveying the exhaustion of the primary caregiver, the ways a stroke can impact speech, language, cognition and physical function, the guilt felt by both the caregiver and the patient and what “recovery” may mean.

A couple of brief episodes marred this novel for me. The first, early on, was a throw-away misogynistic comment which felt out of place. The other (and this could just be because of my professional interest) was when the speech therapist bitterly complains about the lack of funding and decreased quality of therapy services. I’d like to think that no one in this profession would ever be so unprofessional as to say this in front of a patient.

But these were isolated issues in an otherwise stellar novel, and I highly recommend it.


Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review the ARC via Netgalley

“Lean Fall Stand” opens with a man, Thomas, dropping to his knees as a storm bears down upon him. He is in Antarctica as part of a mapping expedition, and, after only three weeks on the ice, he is still unprepared for a storm of this intensity. Robert “Doc” Wright, his technical guide, is assigned to use his thirty years of Antarctic experience to keep Thomas and his mapping partner Luke safe from dangers like this. Unfortunately, when the storm starts, Doc is atop a faraway ridge, slipping off the edge. The narrative whips the reader along, as fast and fierce as the storm itself. I didn’t know that McGregor was capable of writing an adventure thriller, but I loved it. I was all in for 300 pages of danger on the ice.

Then McGregor said, “That’s too simple. I can do so much more.” A third of the way in, the tone changes, and McGregor proceeds to use aphasiac poetry for a meditation on the power of storytelling. “Well,” I thought, “now you are just showing off.” By the end I was in tears, and also angry that a writer could be this good.

Despite the more frantic start to this novel, it is still very much a McGregor novel, told using negative space as much as its positive counterpart. Antarctica is a better match for his style than the English countryside. The Antarctic landscape and “Lean Fall Stand” both require our brains’ perception centers to work differently in order to comprehend the story.They both grapple with problems of proportion, and the need to show small details to illuminate the scope. The natural stillness and empty stretches reflecting the gaps in the characters’ understanding of the world around them. In the last section, McGregor turns towards the gaps in our ability to communicate, the aphasiac’s difficulty in finding words a literalization of characters’ difficulty in voicing truths. We begin to understand Doc when he describes how he returns to the ice year after year because it is not empty; sometimes silence is full.

Some novelists affect readers more viscerally than others. Jon McGregor stands high on that list for me. His way of describing human interactions and events impact me deeply. “Lean Fall Stand” is McGregor’s first novel since the highly acclaimed “Reservoir 13” was published four years ago. I was excited to be invited to read a pre-release proof.

The first section of “Lean Fall Stand” describes a fully plausible, fateful event in Antarctica. It is cinematic, tense, and claustrophobic. The narrative and dialogue are fast-paced, staccato, eerie, and triggering.

Section 2 covers the aftermath of that tragic day, digging into the impact on family members, co-workers, friends, and support systems. The descriptions of how difficult it is to adapt to unexpected circumstances are done in an honest and realistic manner. McGregor captures the harsh realities of threadbare, inadequate government care programs often resulting in crushed lives of survivors forced into caregiver roles for which they are in no way suited nor trained.

Section 3 offers some rays of hope for making the best of a tragic situation, understanding that there are multiple ways to live a life.

“Lean Fall Stand” is not light entertainment. There will be those who feel it doesn’t speak directly to them. If so, they should consider themselves among the fortunate. The reality is that we are all likely to be asked to interrupt our lives to serve others. Being able to do so in a compassionate, humane manner is one of the gifts that we as humans have to give should we choose. McGregor offers us guidance in the way only a skilled author and humanist can do.

Thank you to Catapult and NetGalley for the eARC.

Almost four years ago I read Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 and loved it, so when I saw his latest, Lean Fall Stand, I knew I wanted to read it. I didn’t even bother to read the blurb, as I’d found myself completely captured in the first sentences of reading Reservoir 13, and was anticipating the same. I wasn’t disappointed.

Shared in three sections, this begins with Lean , with the setting being a small Antarctic research station where the main character, Robert ‘Doc’ Wright, who has years of experience, is with two relatively new, young scientists who have just joined this crew - their first trip there.

’When the storm came in it was unexpected and Thomas Myers was dropped to his knees.’

’Falling. Weight. Silence. White. Mouth full. Snow pack tight. Wait. Up. Down. Floating. Low thing. Snow sling. Heart beat slow snow low light gone. Footsteps little far. Footsteps big near. Shout. Pull. Fight. Shout. Pull over, turn over. Breath. Big breath. Mouth open, cold air. Lungs burst. Breath, breath, breath. Stand Lean. Fall.

The three become separated by the storm, they attempt to maintain contact through their radios, while recalling their training. Find or make shelter. Remain in place. Establish contact with the others. Keep moving. Keep calm. Conflicting advice added to a sense of confusion and desperation. With weak signals, and unrelenting winds, their radio connections were spotty, and disrupted. The visibility almost non-existent, they each mentally review the things they learned in training, trying to maintain a sense of calm amidst the blinding storm.

The focus of this story shifts in the second section, Fall,where it falls mainly on Doc, and the events that begin with the storm, and how that event changed the lives of all involved, but primarily Doc and his wife who lives in England. How this event changes their lives. How their story changes over time, with communication strained and difficult, their lives are changed in ways that neither anticipated, nor wanted. Both are frustrated in their own ways with these changes, and feel somewhat helpless against the circumstances they’re dealing with. Of course, each has their own version of the story, they are coming from differing viewpoints. Their need for some way to communicate with each other grows as do their frustrations for someone to hear and understand their stories. Communication, the need to share and listen to each person’s side, their viewpoint, is key, as is the ability to adjust to changing circumstances again and again.

What begins as a story of a polar expedition, a story of survival, eventually evolves into a variation on what is needed in order to move beyond survival to a future where we can envision a life in which we, our stories, are heard and understood. An observation of the need to feel truly heard and understood.

He always had to reach for the words. As though they’d been put on a high shelf in the stores. Out of reach. Or left outside, snowed under, needing to be dug out. He used his hands to fill in the gaps, when he couldn’t quite get to the words.

There’s much more to this story - the need to discover one’s voice as well as the desire to share our stories, and the importance of listening to, and truly hearing other’s stories, as well.

Pub Date: 21 Sep 2021


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press / Catapult

#LeanFallStand #NetGalley

Lean Fall Stand opens with three members of an Antarctic expedition team separated in a sudden storm and my heart and mind started jitterbugging; this is right in my wheelhouse; I love a tale of derring do set at the Poles. The narrative became more exciting, I was all in with the flashbacks to where these people came from and what their daily grind was like at the field station, and then the narrative swerved and became something else; and then it swerved again. Like its three part title, Lean Fall Stand is in three parts, and while it didn’t turn out to be the story I thought it would be, it turned out to be so much more; just exactly as I should have expected from the fascinating mind of Jon McGregor. A story that is ultimately about people and their need to create meaning through shared experience and storytelling, I ended up loving the whole thing.