Strange Heart Beating

A darkly funny and seductive novel that confronts the black undercurrent of possession inherent in love, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing even those dearest to us, Strange Heart Beating is a breathtaking debut from an author whose vision is both acerbic and tender.

Seb's beautiful, beloved wife Leda has been killed by a swan. With a name like that, with a bizarre family history like hers, it isn't really surprising. Seb has a grip on her story and its aesthetics; he knows how it should go. Except that he doesn't. Sorting through her belongings after her death, he comes across a packet of unopened letters from a man whom Leda has never mentioned. It is a loose detail in the thread of his narrative that, when pulled, unravels the whole story of his marriage. Who is this stranger who knew her so well? Why did she flee her home village in Latvia? What happened to her as a young woman in London? Who, Seb wonders, was his wife? Floundering professionally and sunk by grief, he decides to travel to Latvia to find her. He is met, instead, with the living ghosts of her past, all of whom knew a fragment of Leda - but none of whom are willing to share their secrets with him.

'If the Coen Brothers had a sister, she would likely write like Goldstone, her pen dipped in weird black ink, piquant with fantasies and dread delusion' -- Jewish Chronicle

'Overwhelmingly, Strange Heart Beating, with its savage yet comforting undercurrent of a swan as an emblem of the soul reborn, is an ardent examination of loss, framed by multiple cultural allusions' -- Financial Times

'There are funny moments in this book and sensuous descriptions of green, wolf-filled wildness of the Latvian forest, but it's also incredibly melancholy. Death and darkness are an inevitable part of life, especially in Eli Goldstone's world. But she expresses this so beautifully and simply that Strange Heart Beating is a joy to read' -- Emerald Street

'Goldstone's prose is laden with meaning, dark wit and a rich undercurrent of melancholy... With this compact, compelling and very powerful debut, Goldstone has signposted herself as a talented chronicler of human emotions and of the terrifying void that awaits us at the end of life's journey' -- Skinny

'The writing is terrific; the story so skilfully and finely unfolded, full of sly laughs and complex tenderness' -- Sara Baume

'What a beautiful, rare thing Strange Heart Beating is -- funny and tender, yes, but so ferocious, sweeping its reader towards wholly devastating realisations' ---- Lisa McInerney

'I adored this striking debut novel from a bewitching and deceptively complex young voice... A book of layers to become immersed in, tumbling from the sharp edges of reality down the rabbit hole of Leda's origins... filled with the bitterness and melancholy of lost love, darkly witty and immersive from the first page. Eli Goldstone [...] has produced a remarkable debut. She anatomizes grief from the inside out, stripping it back to the sinew, hinting at the magical realism of Angela Carter's writing but establishing a penetrating and fearless style that is firmly her own' --Claire Thinking