Close cookie details

This site uses cookies. Learn more about cookies.

OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to continue, please click here to exit this site.

Hide notification

  Main Nav

Falling Out of Time

Falling Out of Time

Following his magisterial To the End of the Land, the universally acclaimed Israeli author brings us an incandescent fable of parental grief--concise, elemental, a powerfully distilled experience of understanding and acceptance, and of art's triumph over death.

In Falling Out of Time, David Grossman has created a genre-defying drama--part play, part prose, pure poetry--to tell the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village, in a kitchen, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in search of their dead son. The man--called simply Walking Man--paces in ever-widening circles around the town. One after another, all manner of townsfolk fall into step with him (the Net-Mender, the Midwife, the Elderly Math Teacher, even the Duke), each enduring his or her own loss. The walkers raise questions of grief and bereavement: Can death be overcome by an intensity of speech or memory? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to call to the dead and free them from their death? Grossman's answer to such questions is a hymn to these characters, who ultimately find solace and hope in their communal act of breaching death's hermetic separateness. For the reader, the solace is in their clamorous vitality, and in the gift of Grossman's storytelling--a realm where loss is not merely an absence but a life force of its own.

This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
Following his magisterial To the End of the Land, the universally acclaimed Israeli author brings us an incandescent fable of parental grief--concise, elemental, a powerfully distilled experience of understanding and acceptance, and of art's triumph over death.

In Falling Out of Time, David Grossman has created a genre-defying drama--part play, part prose, pure poetry--to tell the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village, in a kitchen, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in search of their dead son. The man--called simply Walking Man--paces in ever-widening circles around the town. One after another, all manner of townsfolk fall into step with him (the Net-Mender, the Midwife, the Elderly Math Teacher, even the Duke), each enduring his or her own loss. The walkers raise questions of grief and bereavement: Can death be overcome by an intensity of speech or memory? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to call to the dead and free them from their death? Grossman's answer to such questions is a hymn to these characters, who ultimately find solace and hope in their communal act of breaching death's hermetic separateness. For the reader, the solace is in their clamorous vitality, and in the gift of Grossman's storytelling--a realm where loss is not merely an absence but a life force of its own.

This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
Available formats-
  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Subjects-
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    0
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
  • Reading Level:

Recommended for you


Excerpts-
  • From the book

    town chronicler: As they sit eating dinner, the man's face suddenly turns. He thrusts his plate away. Knives and forks clang. He stands up and seems not to know where he is. The woman recoils in her chair. His gaze hovers around her without taking hold, and she--wounded already by disaster--senses immediately: it's here again, touching me, its cold fingers on my lips. But what happened? she whispers with her eyes. Bewildered, the man looks at her and speaks:--I have to go.

    --Where?

    --To him.

    --Where?

    --To him, there.

    --To the place where it happened?

    --No, no. There.

    --What do you mean, there?

    --I don't know.

    --You're scaring me.

    --Just to see him once more.

    --But what could you see now? What is left to see?

    --I might be able to see him there. Maybe even talk to him?

    --Talk?!

    town chronicler: Now they both unfold, awaken. The man speaks again.

    --Your voice.

    --It's back. Yours too.

    --How I missed your voice.

    --I thought we . . . that we'd never . . .

    --I missed your voice more than I missed my own.

    --But what is there? There's no such place. There doesn't exist!

    --If you go there, it does.

    --But you don't come back. No one ever has.

    --Because only the dead have gone.

    --And you--how will you go?

    --I will go there alive.

    --But you won't come back.

    --Maybe he's waiting for us.

    --He's not. It's been five years and he's still not. He's not.

    --Maybe he's wondering why we gave up on him so quickly, the minute they notified us . . .

    --Look at me. Look into my eyes. What are you doing to us? It's me, can't you see? This is us, the two of us. This is our home. Our kitchen. Come, sit down. I'll give you some soup.

    man:

    Lovely--

    So lovely--

    The kitchen

    is lovely

    right now,

    with you ladling soup.

    Here it's warm and soft,

    and steam

    covers the cold

    windowpane--

    town chronicler: Perhaps because of the long years of silence, his hoarse voice fades to a whisper. He does not take his eyes off her. He watches so intently that her hand trembles.

    man:

    And loveliest of all are your tender,

    curved arms.

    Life is here,

    dear one.

    I had forgotten:

    life is in the place where you

    ladle soup

    under the glowing light.

    You did well to remind me:

    we are here

    and he is there,

    and a timeless border

    stands between us.

    I had forgotten:

    we are here

    and he--

    but it's impossible!

    Impossible.

    woman:

    Look at me. No,

    not with that empty gaze.

    Stop.

    Come back to me,

    to us. It's so easy

    to forsake us, and this

    light, and tender

    arms, and the thought

    that we have come back

    to life,

    and that time

    nonetheless

    places thin compresses--

    man:

    No, this is impossible.

    It's no longer possible

    that we,

    that the sun,

    that the watches, the shops,

    that the moon,

    the couples,

    that tree-lined boulevards

    turn green, that blood

    in our veins,

    that spring and autumn,

    that people

    innocently,

    that things just are.

    That the children

    of others,

    that their brightness

    and warmness--

    woman:

    Be careful,

    you are saying

    things.

    The threads

    are so fine.

    man:

    At night people came

    bearing...

About the Author-
  • David Grossman was born in Jerusalem, where he still lives. He is the bestselling author of numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and children's literature, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome's Premio per la Pace e L'Azione Umitaria, the Premio Ischia -International Award for Journalism, Israel's Emet Prize, and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize.

Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Kindle Book
    Release date:
  • OverDrive Read
    Release date:
  • EPUB eBook
    Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
  • Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.

Status bar:

You've reached your checkout limit.

Visit your Bookshelf to manage your titles.

×

You already have this title checked out.

Want to go to your Bookshelf?

×

Recommendation Limit Reached.

You have reached the maximum number of titles you are permitted to recommend at this time.

×

Sign in to recommend this title.

Recommend your library consider adding this title to the Digital Collection.

×

Enhanced Details

×
×

Limited availability

Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

is available for days.

Once playback starts, you have hours to view the title.

×

Permissions

×

The OverDrive Read format of this eBook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.

×

Holds

Total holds:


×

You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.

To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Bookshelf.

×

Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.

There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.

Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.

×

You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Bookshelf.

×

This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.

×

An unexpected error has occurred.

If this problem persists, please contact support.

×

×

NOTE: Barnes and Noble® may change this list of devices at any time.

×
Buy it now
and help our library WIN!
Falling Out of Time
David Grossman
Choose a retail partner below to buy this title for yourself.
A portion of this purchase goes to support your library.
Clicking on the 'Buy It Now' link will cause you to leave the library download platform website. The content of the retail website is not controlled by the library. Please be aware that the website does not have the same privacy policy as the library or its service providers.
×
×

There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.

×
Barnes & Noble Sign In |   Sign In

You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.

If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.

Accept to ContinueCancel