A cinematic morality tale set amid the carnage of a French battlefield during World War I.
Daniel Kraus's novel Angel Down takes place late in World War I, just weeks away from the November 11, 1918 Armistice. Private Cyril Bagger, self-professed gambler, con man, and card cheat, has remained safe behind the front lines by volunteering to dig latrines and mass graves. He considers himself a coward, but he's OK with that; his only goal is to survive the war.

After a particularly brutal German artillery assault, someone can be heard shrieking in No Man's Land, and this screeching goes on and on, hour after hour, getting on everyone's nerves. Bagger is ordered, along with four other particularly expendable soldiers, to "take care of" the presumably wounded man. When Bagger finally makes it across the dangerous, cratered battlefield, he finds not an injured person, but an angel entangled in barbed wire. One of the men claims she's the "Angel of Mons" (see Beyond the Book) and as they attempt to take her to headquarters, Bagger is compelled to risk his life to protect her—from enemy fire as well as from his own squadron.

Told in a third-person voice entirely from Bagger's point of view, the novel unspools in one long stream-of-consciousness sentence. The author wisely chooses to break the narrative into shorter chunks separated by white space to make it easier to read; each paragraph, all of which start with "and" and end with a comma, might elsewhere comprise three or four sentences:

"and over the kid's head he glimpses the last marchers vanishing centipedially around a trench corner, the gunmetal sky glowing off the canteens clipped to every pack so it looks like there's a big, silver hole punched through each soldier, the air thick with the molar grind of men overburdened with matériel, the drowsy clops of horse-pulled supply wagons, the asthmatic hack of covered trucks dragging fifty-ton howitzers over cratered rubble,"

The technique risks growing old after a chapter or two, but Kraus's prose is so glorious and his descriptions so alive that the entire book is a marvel. Phrases such as "[his] light brown eyes have gone arachnid with the points of several lanterns" and "Bagger blinks away the ash that snowfalls heavier with each northward step" dot every page, painting a vibrant picture of all the protagonist sees and experiences. All one's senses are engaged ("Bagger has developed a sommelier palate for the tart fizz of brachial blood, the fudgy sorghum of femoral, the meaty sludge of heart wounds…and the warm salt lick of arterial blood he now licks from his lips").

An incredible amount of character development is also woven throughout. Bagger tries to portray himself as a callous, cynical swindler, but we discover he's riddled with lifelong guilt, and buried deep within is a truly good person. His journey toward acceptance of himself, with all his imperfections, helps propel the plot forward.

The novel also offers commentary on the pointlessness of war. The author mentions to Publishers Weekly that Angel Down is, in part, about "the absurdist futility of millions of men dying over a few feet of ruined land" and also remarks, "WWI was the dawn of truly mechanized slaughter, and once begun, that's a self-perpetuating machine that you can't turn off." Although his message risks becoming heavy-handed at a couple of points, overall the author brilliantly illustrates these points throughout the fictional narrative.

Readers might be initially daunted by the novel's structure, particularly if one is unprepared. Although I'm generally open-minded about different writing techniques, I worried Kraus's experimental approach might seem unnecessary and contrived. I'm happy to say that my initial impression was wrong. It didn't take me long to sink into the text's cadence and fully immerse myself in the narrative, and after a few chapters I couldn't imagine any other format being as effective.

The other roadblock for some may be the descriptions of all-pervading gore. Kraus doesn't spare his audience from the horrors of the WWI battlefront. Body parts and viscera are everywhere, people die in stomach-turning ways, and the soldiers are constantly encrusted in blood and muck. The author's depictions are graphic, potentially making the book a challenge for sensitive readers.

I have a penchant for well-written fiction that doesn't fit the typical narrative mold, and Angel Down is right up my alley. The author's brilliant prose, vivid descriptions, interesting characters, and underlying message make this one of my favorites of the year. I imagine that it will be one of those "love it or hate it" types of books, as its single-sentence format may be a high hurdle to overcome for some. If you're looking for a unique book with a ton of depth, however, you can't go wrong with this one—it's absolutely unforgettable.

It’s clearly not you, Daniel Kraus. It’s me. Lots of people love your books and I keep thinking that I will love your books, but they continue to be mediocre reading experiences for me. (Confession: I never even finished Whalefall.)

I can see that this man is incredibly creative. His ideas are innovative, which makes them alluring, but I don’t seem to be as captivated by the stories he tells as I am by the ideas that initially sparked them. It took me quite some time to get into Angel Down, and even when I did, I never felt more than neutral toward it.

I bet a lot of people, whether they love it or hate it, will observe this, though: Angel Down feels like it was written for study, or written specifically to gain classic status as the years go by. I felt, at the same time, that there wasn’t much to speculate on here, as so much intent is spelled out for the reader. That said, Kraus does well enough conveying what lies beneath the ribcage of many men*, giving us a biblical sense of their own destructive tendencies.

Had I not found the beginning of this (almost) never ending sentence so bland, I may have been more enamored with the horror and philosophical elements that followed. I think Kraus lost me before I got there, though, so my read through was a half-hearted affair. I made it to the end and and and and and and

I consider myself lucky. 🙂

I’m sorry, Mr. Kraus. I think I’ll leave your books behind for other people to pick up in the future.

I am immensely grateful to Atria Books and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.

*Men are the main occupants of this novel, so it seems only fair to make this generalization.

<u><b>Angel Down</b></u>
Daniel Kraus
Publication Date: July 29, 2025

ARC courtesy of Atria Books and NetGalley.

Daniel Kraus vividly takes us into the middle World War I. Cynical Pvt. Cyril Bagger and his small crew are sent into No Man’s Land to euthanize a mortally wounded comrade and instead encounter a fallen angel, struck down by artillery fire.

The fallen angel may hold the secret to ending the war, yet the situation is devolved by human avarice, envy and paranoia. Kraus’ writing is lyrical and hypnotic. We are effectively plunged into the horrors of war, which serves as a frighteningly atmospheric backdrop to a vivid study of human nature, good and evil.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria as well as the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
#NetGalley #Atria #DanielKraus #AngelDown #Horror #Fiction #Books #BookReview

Title: Angel Down
Author: Daniel Kraus
Formats: eBook and hard copy
Publisher: Atria
Publication Date: July 29, 2025
Themes: War, supernatural, religious, spiritual
Trigger Warnings: war, grievous injuries, violence, graphic gore, religious, euthanasia, anxiety, PTSD,

Wow! What a crazy ride! A novel about WWI will always invoke emotion, not the least of which is anxiety. This 305 page book is written using only one sentence. This alone made for a frantic and anxiety riddled reading experience. Private Cyril Bagger and four other grunts are sent into the middle of No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded soldier. What they find is a fallen angel who can end this war but, to do that, these five men have to work together in the face of impossible temptation and dangers.

A novel of average length written using only one sentence…I’m still reeling from this book. I didn’t think Mr. Kraus could top Whalefall, but this book is a worthy successor. Awe-inspiring and relentless, this book is an anxiety-inducing and brutally descriptive depiction of war and humanity.

Enough cannot be said to praise Daniel Kraus’ work. I have never read an author before that has a completely different writing style in each book. His work is unendingly compelling, creative, and always contains some kind of surprise. This includes his nonfiction book. I feel so grateful that I live in a world in which there are authors like Daniel Kraus.

Angel Down is a fantastic, original story of WWI France. Told in the stream of consciousness, focusing on Private Cyril Bagger, and his fellow troops as well as an angel stuck on earth amidst the death and chaos, it was a bit hard to follow at the beginning of the book but it was difficult and beautiful in the end. Truly a moving story.

Angel Down is a masterpiece! I have never read anything similar to this story, set on the hellish landscape of WWI France. It is unsettling, disorienting, thought-provoking and well-written. Kraus has crafted a unique book that will stay with me for a long time. Angel Down is speculative fiction at its finest and I highly recommend!

I’ve said this before and it still holds true. None of Daniel Kraus’s books is anything like his others. This one features an angel that is shot down and entangled in barbed wire near the end of World War I. The book is one continuous rambling sentence. It’s exhausting at times to read, but it’s also a brilliant war story. I may come back and give it a fifth star. i’m still thinking about it.

I loved this cover and decided to try something a bit different from books I usually read. Although it is well written and pretty deep it was a bit more painful and bloody than I’m used to reading. From what I can tell plenty of people love it but it just wasn’t for me. It’s still something I would suggest others check out especially if you enjoy reading books about war and the aftermath.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc

Trying to get through the first 15-20% of this book was somewhat difficult. I am legally blind and the conscious flow style of writing threw me a bit. Once it gets going and the story progresses and my brain got used to it, I found it to keep the action moving and it felt like it was compelling me to finish the book quicker. I loved Whalefall and The Living Dead. This was another book to prove Kraus is a great author. Emotional moments that actually make you choke up right after wanting to gag a little from the glory descriptions of blood and guts. Really good stuff. I will definitely recommend. I am actually going to buy the audiobook for the experience.

In a bloody battlefield on the Western Front we meet Private Cyril Bagger, shocked to still be alive after almost being annihilated by artillery fire. He's also shocked that the shells came so close. Bagger signs up for burial duty because there's less chance of enemy fire reaching that far. He's all about survival, and an expert at gaming the system, any system, up to and including a game of Rochambeau.

This novel is engrossing, visceral, propulsive, philosophical, horrific, gory, fantastical, and squeamish. A dark comedy. Every sentence cinematic. Oh wait a minute that's not quite accurate, as the book is one long sentence, a 304 page sentence...but if there is no period is it really a sentence? Don't let this deter you, the narrative just flows, all the action taking place one scene after another after another.

I don't want to say too much about the narrative. It's Bagger and four other misfits, the "division’s disreputables", with an assignment nobody wants (hence the game of Rochambeau), they have an odious General, there's the constant threat of attack, there's the carnage of the WWI battlefield, and there's an angel.

And it all comes together.

My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub. date 7/29/2025)

Fantastic. I loved Whalefall and The Monster Variations so this has been fairly high on my release excitement list. And it did not disappoint. This is not an easy breezy beach read. I’m guessing Kraus’ keyboard has a broken ‘.’ key because there aren’t any in the book. It’s a literal nonstop smorgasbord of war horror and death and it is both brutal and beautiful. The entire book is a giant run on sentence and it drags you into the literal trenches of WW1 like few other books can.

History has never really been my thing but I found myself googling WW1 in the first half to try and grasp the who’s and why’s of it all because I wanted to be able to absorb the material rather than just bounce it off my brain. The core story is that of Private Cyril Bagger. Following the death of his father, the Bishop Bagger, a few years prior he ends up fighting for the allies during WW1. He loathes war and spends most of his time digging graves rather than fight. When he is sent with a few other faulty soldiers to dispatch another soldier, they discover an angel entangled in barbed wire.

The war horror aspect is extremely visceral and easily the darkest part of the book. There is some cosmic horror thrown in which crafted a really fantastic blend to create a dope read. Again, not a blow through it book. I preferred reading this one in chunks as it takes a minute to resorb your mind into the fluidity of the story. In my Whalefall review I mentioned I found it cathartic and Angel Down hits this note as well. Takes a bit of work to get a grasp on Kraus’ style in this work but so worth it. Definitely in my top list for 2025.

Angel Down
Daniel Kraus
7/29/2025
Atria

I’ve never read a book like Angel Down, and I don’t just mean the story—I mean the form. The lack of punctuation caught me completely off guard. It felt disorienting at first, like trying to breathe without pausing, but that’s exactly the point. Once I let go and stopped resisting the rhythm, it became almost hypnotic. The language spills forward in a constant stream, mimicking the chaos of war and the urgency of a soldier’s thoughts. It’s strange, but it works—brilliantly. And once you realize it’s all intentional, it deepens everything: the dread, the awe, and the wonder of what Cyril Bagger encounters in No Man’s Land.

This is not just a war novel. It’s a supernatural reckoning, a moral meditation, and a literary gut-punch. Angel Down asks impossible questions and forces you to sit with them: What do we do when the divine appears in the middle of destruction? How do we decide who deserves to live, and who is simply convenient to leave behind? There’s an angel tangled in barbed wire and five soldiers who think maybe—just maybe—it could save them. But salvation is never simple, and Kraus doesn’t give you easy answers.

You should read this book if you’re tired of stories that play it safe. You should read it if you want to be challenged—not just by plot twists, but by language, ethics, and the sheer strangeness of hope in a hopeless place. Angel Down is brutal, beautiful, and completely unforgettable. It will shake you.

I don't quite know how to put Angel Down into words. It both was what I expected and also wasn't. It was brutal, which you can imagine being about WWI. Particularly, the two thirds of the book was so bleak that it was hard to read, especially knowing that all these horrors were, to some extent, real. Sure, the exact names and locales may differ slightly, but the crux of it? The atrocities? Yeah, they absolutely happened. And keep happening, because human beings just can't seem to stop killing each other.

The storytelling itself is one long sentence, though with appropriate breaks. It's mainly from the perspective of soldier Cyril Bagger, but it's third person so we see others too. Because of the structure, which I fully admit is genius, it feels like I presume the author wants us to understand that Bagger feels- bleak and like the horrors literally never pause. Again, it is so well done, almost too well done, because it was really hard for me to handle at certain points.

But the final third, oh, the final third absolutely hooked me. I appreciated the book so much more because of the final third, and the way it wrapped up left me feeling... well, I still don't have a glowing perspective of humanity, but it was slightly less bleak at points. But only slightly, and IMO, it absolutely fit the tone of the story. If you can handle the brutality, it is absolutely worth reading, but be prepared, and definitely think twice if you're in a bad mental space.

Bottom Line: The writing and structure is brilliant, the story brutal but breathtaking. Absolutely recommend if you've the stomach for it.

Private Cyril Bagger has so far manged to survive the horrors of the Great War, using his wits and swindling his fellow soldiers. He faces the ultimate test when he and four others are given the deadly mission of euthanizing a wounded comrade in No Man's Land.

What they find isn't a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons.

The entirety of Angel Down is one sentence. It's not as crazy as it sounds. I believe it's written this way to direct the flow of the story and to convey the atmosphere of battle. It's broken up with chapters and paragraphs so it doesn't feel overwhelming.

Angel Down is very atmospheric. However the atmosphere is war, blood, and violence. It can be a lot at times. Some descriptions are on the grosser side.

There is meaning through all of it. I can't say I quite understood everything. The style of writing is different from previous books by the author which I have loved. I appreciate the creativity here, but Angel Down just wasn't for me. It's more of personal taste than anything so definitely check it out if you think it sounds good.

Generally, I don’t read books or watch films about war. But Whalefall was one of my favorite books of 2023, and the central idea of Angel Down – a group of soldiers discover a celestial being on a WWI battlefield – had me intrigued, so I decided to make an exception. In the end, Angel Down was rough to get through, but it was worthwhile reading.

Nothing about this book is easy: not the subject matter, not the graphic imagery, not the characters, and not even the way the story is told. The book begins in the middle of a sentence, and the entire book is a continuation of it – one sinuous, never-ending sentence (“careening without periods”) detailing the horrors of war. But it doesn’t feel like a gimmick. In fact it feels like the only way a story of this nature could be told: with urgency, dread, and unflinching violence that never relents. This is the type of book that consumes you while you’re reading it, a book that’s difficult to look away from, even in its goriest, most brutal moments. It places you directly on the battlefield, with the blood and the pain and the savagery and the hubris, and it shows you everything.

But even in the midst of all the brutality, Daniel Kraus’s writing is observant and full of meaning, and his love for his protagonist – Private Cyril Bagger, gravedigger for the 43rd Division of the U.S. Army – shines nearly as brightly as the angel herself. Cyril is a complicated character who isn’t always easy to like – but he’s easy to understand as a victim of his circumstances. The supporting characters are richly-realized, and the angel at the center of the story serves as an enigmatic, slightly sinister anchor for the narrative.

Angel Down isn’t a traditional horror novel, but it’s horror of a kind. War itself is terrifying, maybe the scariest thing there is, and there are elements of cosmic horror near the end that are incredibly unsettling. But somehow, it all ends on a hopeful note in a brilliant conclusion that couldn’t have been executed better. This is probably the most difficult novel I’ll read this year, but it was well worth the time. Thank you to Atria Books for the early reading opportunity.

3.5 stars-Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book, releasing on July 29th!

Wavering dramatically between a three and a four on this one. Gory and dramatic! Very cinematic, could almost imagine this being adapted for tv or film aside from the aforementioned gore. Exceptionally realistic look at war, and choosing WWI as the setting worked well for me since it's a more nebulous conversation of good vs. evil than WWII which has a very clear narrative in the way we talk about it. Even though a few parts were a bit predictable, overall I didn't know where the book was going to go. The symbolism and messaging were beautiful and feel very necessary.

AND YET. It was a chore for me to get through this novel. I wondered if it was due to the format (the book is a single run-on sentence) but honestly within a few pages I got used to the structure and it didn't bother me or affect the readability of the book at all for me after that point, so I don't think it was that. I just struggled to get through this one-I'd read about 5-10 pages and want to put it down and have to force myself to pick it back up again the next day or a couple days later (honestly, if this wasn't an ARC I needed to review, I don't know if I COULD have convinced myself to pick it back up again). Not sure if it was the plotting, the pacing, overall engagement, or what, but despite its many good qualities something about this book clearly didn't work well for me.

This book is unlike anything I have ever read before.
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus did not disappoint!
This book was so unique, heartbreaking, horrifying.
I absolutely ate this book up.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s Whalefall, and the description of this book enticed me. However, the conceit of telling the story in a single sentence (except when quoting a character directly) wore very thin very quickly to me. Formatting it in blocks helps, but the stream of consciousness style just didn’t work for me. I’m afraid I gave up. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for making this available.

A unique, challenging and rewarding read for those who are able to fall into the rhythm of the sentence. Kraus has done something I've not seen before- written an entire novel in one sentence, which by the way, ends with a comma. This is a sometimes graphic portrait of men in the middle of a war who are grappling with the idea that an angel has landed among them, Cyril Bagger's mind is a chaotic, propulsive,, messy place but it feels very real. This won't be for everyone but it's a terrific experience. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Don't be surprised to see this at Booker time. For fans of literary fiction.

I was intrigued by this book because of the WWI focus, but I had no idea it would be so unique. I loved the writing style—the novel as run-on-sentence—as well as the intense imagery. It is definitely a book that is worth several readings to mine it more deeply.