Angel Down

by Daniel Kraus

AMID THE CARNAGE OF WAR, FIVE MEN MUST DECIDE WHETHER A FALLEN ANGEL IS THEIR REDEMPTION – OR THEIR RUIN.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. 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, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.

Genres: Horror, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, War, Audiobook, Historical

285 pages, Hardcover

First published July 29, 2025

About the author

“Kraus brings the rigor of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet.” – The New York Times

DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His novel Angel Down was the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2025 ,and a national bestseller. His novel Whalefall received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more.

With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. He cowrote The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, and more.

Kraus’s work has been translated into over 25 languages. He lives with his partner in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.com.

Reviews

[Rick Riordan]

A great premise: During World War I, an angel is apparently shot from the heavens and crashes into No Man's Land, where her unearthly shrieking unsettles the soldiers in the trenches. Cyril Bagger and a group of other army misfits and ne'er-do-wells are sent to "take care" of the problem, i.e. find the shrieker and either save them or put them out of their misery.

The finding of a literal angel, as one might expect, complicates their mission.

The book contains some of the most beautiful and horrific descriptions of war that I've ever read. Kraus makes it feel visceral and real. As other reviewers have noted, you have to prepare yourself for the author's stylistic narrative choice of writing the novel as one long run-on sentence, without periods and with each paragraph starting with "and." We are told at the beginning that this style is a metaphor for the war itself, which goes on and on like a never-ending sentence:

". . . just like the war won’t ever end, like the carnage won’t ever end, it’s a sentence in a book careening without periods, gasping with too many commas, a sentence that, once begun, can’t ever be stopped, a sentence doomed to loop back on itself to form a terrible black wheel that, sooner or later, will drag each and every person to their grave . . ."

Kraus commits to the bit for the entire book, and while I didn't mind it and indeed got used to it fairly quickly, I can see why it might put off some readers. The ending is also, shall we say, open-ended -- the sort of conclusion that does not conclude, and will either leave you saying, "Wow, that was mind-blowing" or will compel you to hurl the book across the room.

I am still processing, but I found the book absolutely worth reading. Fantastical elements don't feel out of place in this story of war, which is already a surreal environment, and it left me wondering what is more terrifying -- the wrath of heaven or the wrath of humanity.

[Char · Rating 5 out of 5]

That may have been the longest sentence I’ve ever read. In fact, I'm sure of it! Have you ever read an entire book that consisted of one sentence? No? Me either. Daniel Kraus somehow pulled this off whilst creating an appalling and atmospheric novel of the Great War. I loved it!

When private Bagger is dispatched from his semi-safe bunker to silence, (by whatever means necessary), whoever it is that won't stop screaming on the battlefield, he discovers not a wounded soldier, but instead a wounded angel,

and one might think the soldier's trouble is over in life, but that is not the case, because the angel isn't screaming anymore and she emits a light, a light that makes her a target on the battlefield, which makes it difficult to protect her,

and everyone wants to feel that light, right, I mean who wouldn't want to marinate in the light of an angel, especially in a war zone, but it falls to Bagger to protect her, not only from his fellow soldiers, but from himself,

and I have to admit that stories about WWI or any war for that matter, just aren't my thing; I mean I have a few stories set during wartime that I love, but it's not something I would actively seek out, but I WILL seek out anything Daniel Kraus writes, because I think his work is amazing,

and this book is no exception, and the experimental device of writing the entire book in one long sentence-I think it was daring and it certainly must have been challenging, but no matter how it was written, the narrative itself sucked me in...the idea of a fallen angel on the battlefield leads to all kinds of questions, like how did she come to be there and angels can be injured,

and why wouldn't she stop the war if she was an angel, but maybe she does right, because you haven't read this book yet and it would be wrong of me to ruin it for you, but I do think that Daniel Kraus has written a winner here and if you want to find out what happens, you're going to have to read this book,

and I think you should, because I doubt you've ever read anything like it before, and nothing like it may ever be written again and because of this, I give Angel Down my highest recommendation, period.

*ARC from publisher
**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE for fiction! **

[Strega Di Gatti · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all those that found All Quiet on the Western Front too relaxing, too soothing, there's Angel Down. I don't mean to be insensitive about shellshock, but if there's a book about The Great War that could cause the trembles, it's this one. Daniel Kraus has crafted a novel that's technically one long sentence stuffed with evocative and visceral language. And by visceral, I mean that literal viscera is everywhere. Expect the kind of visual gore usually found in splatterpunk books with AI covers.

But, back to that real long sentence; is it difficult to parse it? Not at all. The text is chunked in neat paragraphs, and while the story is fast-paced, it never leaves us behind.

Like Whalefall, this is really the journey of one dude: Turn-of-the-century confidence man and preacher's kid Cyril Bagger. He's barely surviving as the U.S. First Army's least reliable 43rd division solider in the trenches of Bois de Fays, France. Thoroughly aware of his uselessness, Private Bagger has been left behind with a ragtag bunch of fellow Company P losers on a suicide mission to rescue an injured solider in No Man's Land. There's no time to say, "I have a bad feeling about this" before the situation goes to shit. Shit and mud, and blood, and all the best fluids, really!

Bagger is our POV for the entire novel and by the end you'll feel overwhelmed, but satisfied by the overall story arc. I'd even wager to describe it as somewhat uplifting? Now that's refreshing for a novel which merges two themes: "man's inhumanity to man" and "intergenerational religious trauma" - You know, the staples of modern horror books now classified as litfic (aka: Publisher allowed a fancy cover).

I gotta share more words about the writing in Angel Down, as I'm sure it's going to be much discussed among the ton! You know how sometimes a highly-praised writer's language is dense, stuffed with sketchy allusions, ill-fitting adjectives, and strained metaphors? The kind of writing where you squint and struggle to understand the author's intent?

Imagine instead the joy of reading paragraphs that are dense with allusions, over-the-top adjectives, and direct metaphors, but you actually understand what's going on. It's all so on point you feel like the narrator's emotions and observations are your own. How has this kind of a reading experience become a rarity? Yum, finally some good descriptive writing. And yes, it's frequently gross. Five stars!

[Asa Giannini · Rating 1 out of 5]

Certain works of fiction make me doubt my own taste. Sometimes a work is beloved by audiences and critics alike and I interact with it and end up absolutely detesting it. Were I slightly more confident, I’d simply say the masses are wrong and I’m correct, but generally I put a great stock in criticism and want to at least understand where my opinion differs. Adding to my angst is the fact that often these works are sophisticated and do end up growing on me over time. Sometimes I am too quick to judge and do eventually come around to thinking the popular consensus is the right one (Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, for example, were incomprehensible to me when I first interacted with them and now are among my very favorites). Other times of course, I come to think that my initial opinion is the correct one after all and that, for whatever reason, other readers/viewers are simply wrong. The other option, to take quality as subjective and throw up one’s hands, is not available to me as I simply don’t believe it. Ultimately taste may be subjective but I don’t think quality is, leading to my crisis of confidence in my own taste.

All this to say, I am currently struggling to make sense of Daniel Kraus’s Angel Down, a pulitzer-prize winning historical horror novel that has near unanimous praise from critics and readers alike. I began the book with optimism, drawn in by its flashy premise and interesting central gimmick. But by the midway point I was tired of it and by the end, I truly detested it. I’m at a bit of a loss to explain why one of the best reviewed books of last year is one of the worst things I’ve read in five years. But here’s my very best attempt; please enjoy.

Angel Down’s concept is simple: toward the end of World War One, a cowardly grifter named Bagger serving as an army grave digger is tasked with finding the source of a piercing, otherworldly scream in the no-man’s land between trenches. This source turns out to be a glowing, haloed woman caught in the barbed wire, seemingly a downed angel. In trying to rescue her, Bagger must face his own moral bankruptcy as well as the horrors of war. The book has a formal gimmick: the story is told as one continuous sentence (in practice this just means that each paragraph begins with the word ‘and’ and ends with an ellipsis). In the first chapter we’re told overtly this format is supposed to symbolize the unending horror of war and also the unending scream of the angel. So far so simple.

Seemingly the flashpoint for criticism has been the format of the book: with its one run-on sentence being viewed by many as disconcerting or hard to read. In practice, it’s not that hard to get past which actually highlights my main issue with it: it’s not really serving any purpose. It’s not actually a run on sentence in the traditional sense but instead a lack of punctuation. It’s like saying your book is entirely composed of questions but then simply replacing every period in the book with a question mark: it’s technically true but doesn’t add anything. As to the thematic importance, there’s nothing to it beyond a shallow nod towards the shattered mental state of the character (something that would be equally well accomplished by the prose were it better written but we’ll get to that in a moment). Ultimately the structure didn’t bother me much in practice but it does seem arbitrary and silly.

What did bother me was Kraus’s deeply overwritten prose. Let’s take a look at a passage drawn more or less at random from the first pages of the book:

and it's only through the motions of inhaling that Bagger feels a brittle tightness, his face is glazed in dried blood, clearly not his own, and he orders himself not to imagine whose, it's best when blood has no deeper meaning than rain, especially in the Argonne where so few trees remain to block the October wind that flash-dries blood so rapidly to your skin,

What actually happens in this passage is simple: Bagger breathes in which makes him realize his face is covered in dried blood but the language makes it seem epic and impactful. And if the passage ended at ‘rain’ it might be poignant but instead we get a further clause to remind us of what we already know which is that we’re in a hellish warscape (and that blood is worse if it dries quickly?). It's overwrought and self-important, using too many words to say too little. Writing like this can be effective if it provides some sort of emphasis, but every single bit of the book is written like this: nothing just happens, it’s so weighed down in adjectives and similes that the action of the book can never breathe.

I’ve seen the writing defended as being stream-of-consciousness, and I suppose it is, but from whose perspective? There’s no world in which the shell-shocked private Bagger uses language like this so it’s the narrator, seemingly trying to create a mood of prolonged madness and exhaustion but it's too flowery and verbose to sound exhausted and instead seems to revel in describing the carnage. There are writers who can get away with purple prose but it requires a wit and mastery of language that Kraus simply doesn’t have. Instead his authorial voice is artless but exuberant, relishing in ten-cent words, modern cursing, and strange similes. I fear some readers are under the false apprehension that big word and flowery language are akin to good writing but they're not. You need a voice, a goal, a reason to use the language you use to evoke something, anything about your story or characters. Kraus has none.

These stylistic concerns would be more forgivable if the novel underneath were more structurally sound, but alas, it isn’t. The theme of the book is incredibly simple: war is hell. It gets this point across first with cartoonish violence (smashed intestines, piles of heads, dismembered bodies, etc.). The elaborate descriptions of gore are so extreme and silly that I legitimately doubt any of it is physically possible (at one point a character puts on a severed horse head as a mask making one wonder if Kraus understands that there would be a skull in the way). It’s disturbing enough but ultimately too extreme to read as anything but childish, as if the author lacks the skill to actually frighten and disturb with a well-placed detail so instead goes for a volume business in numbing the reader with a never-ending cavalcade of Loony Tunes horrors.

The characters are paper thin and ultimately a bit nonsensical. Introduced as broad wartime stereotypes (the coward, the brute, the kid, the shell-shocked veteran, etc.), they rarely go beyond that into any sort of characterization. And ultimately the characters are forced into whatever shape happens to fit Kraus’s plot. For example, Bagger himself has an endless (of course) inner monologue about his relationship with his religious father and his own unwillingness to fight. He avoids violence at all costs and is only inspired to any sort of bravery out of love for the Angel. However, towards the book's end, he suddenly becomes violent and angry, eager to kill the enemy at all costs without any explanation. Suddenly the major vice he needs to overcome is not cowardice but wrath. The other characters don’t generally have enough of an inner life implied to really have characterizations at all. They each serve their purpose by being ugly and broken and then, in the presence of the angel, insane. The officer character who eventually functions as main villain makes so little sense, I kept wondering if he too was going to be revealed to be a supernatural figure.

As to the angel itself and the fantasy-horror conceit of the book, it lacks the consistency needed to provide a compelling plot. The angel is at first a victim to be saved, then a manipulator, then a genie of sorts, and then perhaps the devil? The angel is helpless when Kraus needs his characters to act bravely and then all powerful when it needs them to be rescued or killed: it’s a literal deus ex machina. And where does all this lead but to a painfully unreadable passage of overt polemic anti-war piece masquerading as religious vision. Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut managed to get their points across without having to come out and say ‘war is bad and never ending’, Kraus seemingly lacks this subtlety. All this leads to an ending that is to me more incomprehensible than it is moving. What exactly happens in the final chapter is up for debate, something I might credit as purposeful ambiguity, had I more faith in the author’s writing chops.

I think some fans might say I missed the point at every turn: Kraus is using his language and his characters to show how fundamentally war breaks down coherence, rendering men as brutes and the world as a gory hell. But I can see this goal clearly, it’s simply buried under the bad structure and incomprehensible language of a bad writer. There’s no consistency to this message, no purpose to the bizarre plot turns and supernatural occurrences: it’s a novel of nonsense willing to pretend like nonsense is the point. When the book reaches its conclusion, with Bagger standing in for all of humanity and making a choice to be pacifistic and save us or be violent and damn us, I rolled my eyes because this plot turn would only make sense if Bagger were more of an everyman and not an ex-religious con-artist coward as the book had spent so much time setting up. Angel Down is completely at odds with itself though you’d be forgiven for not-noticing under the soggy weight of Kraus’s writing.

The term pretentious is thrown around a lot to denigrate work that aims for any sort of intelligence or significance--i.e. if I didn't understand it, it must be pretentious. But the actual meaning of pretentious is to express a possession of importance, worth or stature one doesn’t actually have. And Angel Down is to me a hugely pretentious work. It's a novel that frustrates me by how badly it wants to be important, stylish, creative, and impactful while possessing none of the intelligence and skill necessary. Perhaps in this case I will be comfortable simply going against the grain and saying this is indeed, a very bad book, pulitzer prize be damned.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Those were definitely words. Big ones, and a lot of them. War is bad! Someone give this guy a Pulitzer!

[LindaPf · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tale of literary hell — a book where the chapters are numbered with Roman numerals, and EVERY paragraph begins with the word “and.” And each of those paragraphs is just a run-on sentence, so the entire book is devoid of ANY periods, including the last page. WTH?

And this was SO disappointing since I truly enjoyed Kraus’ “Whalefall,” the story of a diver swallowed by a whale (those chapter headings were the amount of oxygen that was leftover). And I was so enticed by the teaser that a group of soldiers find a fallen angel and try to rescue her. And, yet it was a chore to eek out the story if I didn’t know about the angel in advance. And we know that the truly despicable main character, Cyril Bagger, is just barely surviving near the French frontline trenches of World War I, surrounded by death and gore, continuously musing about vulgarity, and considering himself lucky to be on burial duty. And his inner monologue is overwhelmingly depressing. And, and, and, are you annoyed yet?

AND I must note that the author forced me to look up the definition of “absquatulate” and I was inspired to do just that with the book. I absquatulated midway, did a speed reading through the next and, and, and chapters, read the last few in order to decide if I should go back, and decided that was enough. And an extravagant description of dead kittens was repulsive. And unnecessary. 2 stars.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy.

ADDENDUM: This was my worst book of the year, and it was just awarded the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. OK. To each their own.

[Nuno Markl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quando comecei a ler o vencedor do Pulitzer de ficção deste ano, achei que o e-book estava estragado. O primeiro capítulo arranca a meio de uma frase, assim mesmo: “and Cyril Bagger considers himself lucky, he ought to be topped off, gone west, bumped, clicked it, pushing daisies…”
E depois percebi que não. Percebi que Daniel Kraus acabara de me largar, impiedosamente, à bruta, no meio de um sítio, de um tempo, de uma história, e que eu agora tinha de correr com ela, sem me esbardalhar. E que sítio, que tempo, que história: estamos num campo de batalha em França, durante a I Guerra Mundial; o caos, o horror, o sangue, a lama, está tudo à nossa frente, à nossa volta, em cima de nós. É um salve-se quem puder que Kraus nos serve de forma literalmente imparável: todo o livro é uma longa frase, da primeira à última página, toda ela vírgulas e “ands”… e a técnica funciona mesmo.
A premissa é esta: um grupo de soldados é encarregado, após uma batalha, de encontrar o dono de um grito contínuo e suplicante, para nele darem o tiro de misericórdia. Acontece que o grito não é de um homem - é de um anjo, aparentemente atingido no seu voo. Mais não pode ser revelado: Angel Down é uma absoluta loucura de livro, uma ansiosa rajada de palavras, emoções, violência e surpresas, com um lado satírico pacifista afiado que o aproxima de Dr. Strangelove, mas com uma explosiva mistura de brutalidade e sobrenatural etéreo que fazem dele uma experiência única. Mas aviso já: é uma empreitada tão intensa e avassaladora, que, no fim, eu estava extenuado. O bom tipo de extenuado.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus is worth the effort it demands of its reader, but make no mistake, this is not an easy novel to inhabit. From the outset, Kraus challenges the reader with a relentless, run-on narrative style that takes time to adjust to. Add to that the brutal subject matter, World War I, the Great War, and the experience is often bloody, visceral, and deeply unsettling. Kraus does not shy away from the sanguinary nature of combat; this is war rendered in all its horror, and it is decidedly not for the faint of heart.

The story follows Private Cyril Bagger, the son of a bishop and a deeply unlikable protagonist at first glance. A shirker, con artist, and all-around scallywag, Bagger begins the novel as a gravedigger who spends far more energy scheming to swindle his fellow soldiers than confronting the reality of war.

When his commander selects Bagger and four other low-ranking privates for what amounts to a suicide mission--to rescue a shrieking figure stranded on the front lines--the novel takes a strikingly metaphorical turn. The “screamer” is revealed to be a woman, and each soldier perceives her differently. To one, she represents financial salvation; to another, a wife; to another still, a mother. She becomes a projection of safety, love, and meaning, in other words, everything war has stripped from them.

As the journey unfolds, Bagger undergoes a quiet but powerful transformation. The grifter slowly reveals a conscience, a soul shaped not by heroics but by responsibility and empathy. Each of the men, in turn, exposes his true nature as they attempt to move the woman--angel, symbol, human being--from the front line toward safety.

Ultimately, Angel Down is a meditation on war’s corrosive force and the fragile struggle to remain human amid relentless violence. It is a novel about brutality, yes, but even more so about the painful, uncertain effort to preserve humanity when chaos reigns.

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title/Author: Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Format Read: Audiobook/Libro FM

Pub date: July 29th, 2025

Publisher: Atria Books

Page Count: 304 page/audio: 8.5 hours

Affiliate Link: BOOKSHOP.ORG

What it's about: Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. 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.

Recommended for readers who enjoy:

-War stories (gruesome details, just be aware) Battlefields (1914-1918 World War 1)

-Experimental, often lyrical prose in an unending stream of consciousness style

-Non-stop action/Cinematic/Historical fiction

-Military brotherhood

-Paranormal Activity

-Thought provoking

__

Minor complaints:

-It is RELENTLESS in its escalation and intensity

-The audiobook is AMAZING, a cinematic experience

Final recommendation: There is a potential for some special moments of reader discovery to be spoiled in reviews that give too much detail. I went into this audiobook almost blind. I knew it was a "war book" (which I don't typically enjoy) and I knew the men in the book find something on the battlefield that they have to rescue. A bookish friend told me that the prose is "stream of consciousness" (I also don't typically enjoy that style) so she recommended reading with my eyeballs rather than my ears. I decided to do the audiobook anyway and even though I don't like war books or experimental writing styles, I tried it because I love Whalefall and I kept seeing readers praise this book as their favorite of the year.

It is that good.

I was immediately absorbed. I was on that battlefield. I was in the trenches, I saw everything, felt it all. It is an insane amount of intensity that never relaxes (until the end) but it's worth the journey. I highly recommend it. I know I'll never read anything like it ever again.

Comps: I don't have comps, actually. It's totally and utterly set apart.

[Ken]

This was one of The New York Times "Top 10 Books of the Year." Wow.

I'll give it this -- it's unusual. Set in WWI in France in the heat of battle, it's filled with a bit too realistic images of death and carnage. Kraus almost luxuriates in descriptions of the many ways bodies can be cut, smashed, torn, ripped, disemboweled, and blown up. As a reader, you almost become inured to all the red imagery.

The anti-hero, Bagger, resembles Billy Pilgrim in that he's one cynical dude. Only he happens to be the son of a bishop, so there's that dichotomy to remember.

One conceit in the book is the endless sentence. Look at me, Ma, no hands! So Kraus can say he wrote a one-sentence novel but, whatever. The reader just comma-splice pauses periods into whichever commas he wishes. Adjustments are made, in other words, and the show-offy becomes ordinary.

Depressing, but the angel angle finally gains traction in the last 50 pp. And you get rewarded with a twist. And you see how clever that title really is.

So, yeah. Enjoyed it begrudgingly. Hardly Chrismas season fare, but all's fair in war and literature, right?

MAY 2026 UPDATE: This angelic blood and gore won a Pulitzer. Look, Ma! No hands!

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This is a challenging book to rate and review. It kept me riveted to my seat, and the scenes are burnt into my memory. I was left in shellshock, so I believe the author achieved his goal. It can be classified as a historically inspired fiction, horror, fantasy-based, and a character-driven psychological story. Since it is set in muddy WW1 trenches, and the battlefield, the scenes are gross, ghastly, and grotesque, and vividly described. I was kept spellbound by the powerful narrative.

I received the much-appreciated ARC from Netgalley and the publisher. I had read both Whalefall and The Shape of Water, and I just discovered that Kraus had co-written The Shape of Water, an Oscar-winning best picture that was expanded into a book. I enjoyed them all.

The violence and gut-wrenching scenes will not appeal to all readers; many will find them disturbing. The book's structure and format will also be off-putting to some. It was quite strange and seemed experimental. All paragraphs began with 'and' and contained run-on sentences without periods.
Kraus showcases a vast vocabulary, including some obscure words. I was glad to be reading on my Kindle so that I could click on an unknown word to learn its meaning. However, I found the story gripping, suspenseful, thought-provoking, and tension-filled but also convoluted.

The premise is known. A scream keeps coming from an area where there are mass graves. The officer in charge of the battalion orders four men, whom he considers the most disagreeable and useless, to embark on a dangerous journey. The goal is to put the screaming soldier out of his misery by killing him. The story is narrated by the despicable Cyril Bagger who is one of the men sent to euthanize the screamer. He is known as a conman, a cheating gambler, who has won money from many in the troop. He serves as a gravedigger, which keeps him away from active duty and away from French enemy lines. He is disliked, except for a 14-year-old soldier, who admires and follows him. The shrieking person turns out to be a suspected angel. Each one in the group wants to possess the angel for nefarious purposes. Three of the men die horrible deaths. Bagger thinks he can use the angel to raise his status and end the war. He returns to headquarters carrying the angel. Of course, his meeting with the mission commander went badly, as the officer had other ideas.

Recommended to readers who don't mind a gruesome, heart-wrenching story of what WW1 must have looked, smelled, and sounded like, and can overlook what is an unusual writing style. It is due to be published July 29th.

[Becky Spratford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Star Review in the May 2025 issue of Booklist and on the blog: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2025/05...

Three words that describe this book: visceral, ambitious, reads like a chant.

I need to address the word ambitious. This book is ambitious as it sets out to put the horrors of war on the page without being literal like ALL’S QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and it is visceral and difficult but also very readable and compelling.

The book is able to put the horror of war on the page, but also the humans who fight in it. The horror of war from the violence to the living conditions to the lives lost to....just all of it, is center stage here.

Everything is through Bagger's eyes and he is very clear from the start that he is a con-artist, a charlatan. He has avoided fighting by offering to dig graves and latrines. He holds a lot of shame and guilt from the second he was born (killing his mother in the process) and the way he parted with his dad before his death. He grew up the son of a Bishop, in the church, but is more spiritual than religious. He is a misanthrope in many ways, but in others-- he is not. His adoration for the young Arno is the best example. The boy is like the little brother he never had.

The book is structured and reads like a chant (religious or secular). Every paragraph begins with the word and. There are many commas and few periods. There are small horizontal bars at times, they are there for the reader to take a breath, a small pause and then keep going. (I felt that at least)

Kraus keeps this up for the entire book (except one key section) and it works. Readers fall Ito the rhythm, and I for one, couldn't imagine this book any other way. The pages themselves are striking to look at. But a straight narrative would not have worked here. Kraus needs to reader to fall under his and Bagger's spell, in order to make it through the VERY visceral depictions of war (what happens to a body destroyed by weapons). Readers need to be able to get through the gore of war to fall into the story he is crafting.

Following those who come into contact with the angel, and how they react, is as mesmerizing as she is herself. It allows the reader a peek into the other character's state of mind, what is most important to them, who they are at their most essential core, without taking the POV away from Bagger. Watching them allows Bagger to find himself.

And the overall message here is worth the trip-- yes it is about the horrors of never ending war, yes it is about the horrors of the things people do to each other, yes it is about the horrors we do to ourselves, yes it is about the horrors we humans inflict on the earth.....you could go on and on. This is not a happy ending book, but it is a book (much like Whalefall) that renews the readers faith in living their best life while alive-- despite the horrors around us.

This book is challenging-- not so much to read but to sit with. But it is also bare-naked honesty on the page.

Here is a note I took: Is Bagger's story driven by a miracle or luck? Does it matter? What does matter here is Kraus' awe-inspiring skill.

For fans of Whalefall and Rotters. The themes from those have grown over his career. I feel like this is part three in an unintended series.

Clearly influenced by W. Scott Poole's amazing nonfiction Wasteland: the Great War and the origins of modern horror. I also want to highly recommend the Graphic Novel The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme by Joe Sacco. I read this amazing book back in 2014 and did a review on my blog here:https://raforall.blogspot.com/2014/03.... I thought of it immediately as I began this novel.

Fiction wise, The Militia House by John Milas-- an amazing war horror novel set during the Afghanistan War.

But also I felt a kinship here to The Unworthy by Bazterrica (which I gave a star in LJ). As I was re-reading my review I saw the appeal was so similar. I will probably include it as a readalike in my review.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

WINNER OF THE2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION!

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The critically acclaimed author of the “crazily enjoyable” (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. 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, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I learned early in life that humans are vile, irredeemable homunculi, ruled by hatred, greed, and envy. Church was a solid training ground, thank you Jesus. So the story of the men in this tale wasn't a revelation or a surprise, nor an insulting calumny on humankind. It merely felt like I was hearing from a cheerier, more forgiving soul-sibling of mine.

Did anyone I know read Ducks, Newburyport? That hugely long sentence has a smaller sibling now in Kraus's latest, weird-stop-full-out toccata for literary pipe organ. It's about greed and hate and jealous loathing and fear...it's about humans trying to cope with transcendent realities while in the mire of fantastical pestilential mud. It's what your soul wants and your body resists while you can't even see a yard ahead because you need not to be slaughtered.

Unlike Lucy Ellmann's genius work of transcendence in the quotidian...I'm too intimidated to review it, there's just too much in there I want to read aloud to you!...this sentence is more compressible. It feels like Author Kraus did what Warhol did in Empire ...turned on the camera after framing the shot then went away...but the point of this story is not to watch as time passes but watch as feelings, desires, emotions pass. It's a Zen in-joke. It's the kind of technique that some bounce off hard. It's meant to enable you as reader to get inside a flow of experiences of reality without ever feeling you are limited to just one. White space is your resting point; the absence of periods/full stops is your clue to the emotional reality of the Great War these people are utterly mired in, consumed by, entrapped entombed enmeshed inside.

The experiences are all, mental emotional psychical transcendent one and all, all of them are brutal and honest and unsentimentally crudely Earthy. In the midst of a grinding torturous killing machine with no end to the horror pain cruelty waste dehumanization, how else could they be? An angel from God in Her Heaven wounded and suffering? A divine being in need? A war experience that encompasses this! An actual angel laid low and so accessible to the traumatized men in need of a miracle....

So now, this being the case, what do these men do? Why do they hesitate or even reject doing the "obvious" and stopping the War? but a nagging voice insists it’s a miracle, which only pisses him off, he’ll be goddamned if he’s going to start believing in miracles here in hell

Bagger is our PoV. He is not one bit better than he is forced to be. He is canny, savvy to the ways of the world; he has a limited intellect, and if he has a soul, I saw no evidence of it. Arno, his foil, is Lumpenproletariat on legs, though more redeemable in my eyes than Bagger.

So how to explain my four and a half stars, when everything I've said either points all the way up or all the way down? I'm missing one key thing to make it the holotype war-fantasy story to rule them all: Why? Within the story, the why? never comes. I understand it's deliberate, it's a choice not a lapse. I still think a "why"...why Bagger, why now, why angel not demon...anchors a story set in a brutally real setting better than a lingering question does.

Gore, wickedness, horror, and all, it's one of my favorite reads of 2025.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I imagine the pitch for this book looking like a room with the author and some other people in it and he’s like “hey guys I want to write a book in World War I where they FUCKING KILL EACH OTHER INTENSELY and it’s one sentence long and every other word is fuck or poop” and they’re all like wow that sounds kind of very generic to be honest and he’s like “well I can put an angel in if that makes it better” and they’re all like ok.

[Gyalten Lekden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suppose it is somewhat required to start any review discussing the uncommon narrative style, the decision to write the novel as a single sentence. The truth is, it worked for me. It wasn’t necessary for the story, but it would be dishonest to say it didn’t affect the reading experience. There was a constant breathlessness, a sense of urgency to the writing, and while there are other narrative devices that could elicit that feeling the artistic decisions felt appropriate here. The story doesn’t stop, it takes place in the middle of a battlefield and you feel the chaos and desperation. Building off of the narrative decisions was a dreadful sense of pacing, a constant moving that dragged you along. The story was really well-paced, in this regard; the narrative decisions and the setting and environment and the story being told all worked together seamlessly. The world-building and atmosphere were superb, really giving you the bone-tired weariness of the mud and guts and fetid hopelessness that pervaded the front lines four years into the Great War. There is a verisimilitude to the quotidian nature of violence and death that makes everything feel painfully and emotionally real. In addition, the characters, especially our main character, fit so well in this world. They are complicated and feel like they genuinely occupy space, physical and emotional, and the way they developed through the story was heartfelt and carried the story.

For all of its (not quite, but almost) gimmicky narrative devices, this story is exploring wildly important ideas. It isn’t concerned with faith as much as you might expect, given the main character is the son of a preacher and the whole narrative moves around him finding an angel in no man’s land. Instead, this is a story about humanity. About what you can live with, and what you can’t. About how violence and love and devotion and obsession don’t occupy neat, distinct places in our emotional landscape and we need to constantly hunt for the person we aspire to be. This is a story that cares about salvation, not of your soul but of your humanity, and suggests that is a hard thing to keep hold of during wartime. Friendship, loyalty, hope, reliability, perseverance and more are all investigated and tested. This novel reads really quickly, not coming close to overstaying is welcome (which is a genuine possibility when using novel narrative/artistic devices). Yet in its few pages it has a dedication to language, being really beautifully and thoughtfully written, and to emotion, always striking for the vital points. It can be a harrowing ride, at times, but was definitely one worth taking.

[Matt Quann · Rating 5 out of 5]

May 4th update: Pulitzer for Fiction 2026! Very cool choice, much respect.

When a novel’s initial talking point is its unending sentence structure, you might prepare yourself, as I did, for an inexorable reading experience. Much to my surprise, the pages of Angel Down flipped as if taken by the wind. This is to say, Angel Down is a novel that takes a schtick and justifies itself throughout the reading.

Looking back to Kraus’s first novel, the excellent Whalefall, the man has a predisposition to writing viscerally and writing about viscera that carries over into Angel Down. The WWI setting is brought to grimey, gore-splattered life through Kraus’s evocative prose. There’s nothing quite like a sentence where whispers are soft like stirring a vat of syringes and it’s this grotesque style that, to me, makes his novels worth reading.

What’s more, Kraus has a crackerjack plot here. The most miserable and unfortunate members of a squadron are sent off to determine the source of an unending scream. As you may have surmised, the lads find a downed angel on the battlefield and have to get her back to camp. The characters here are memorable and the horrors visited upon them remarkable for their thematic weight.

Here we come to the truly impressive bit of the novel: it’s one that demands a second reading. This first reading is all about what was going to happen next as I was awash in filthy-good prose. I think there’d be more time to read up on biblical references that passed far over my head on a second go-around.

Honestly, this is a serious contender for the best thing I’ve read so far in 2026. The NYT best fiction picks have steered me in the right direction before, and I’m happy to start the 2025 list with such a banger. Highly recommended!

[Tracy P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 solid stars.

Kraus's Angel Down is a deeply profound, graphic and thought provoking novel which demands introspection. I will be processing this for a long time.

The breathtaking narration by solo performer Kirby Heyborne left me speechless.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had known the central device of this book (one single sentence) I would never have touched it in my life. But I listened to the audiobook, which is the only reason you are seeing this review. That style is still clear on audio, and I really struggled with the first hour or two. It felt so dense and sometimes I had a hard time following. I can't say audio is an ideal format for the novel, because I generally recommend audio for things where it won't kill you if you miss a few seconds. But it is a unique novel and a unique reading experience.

Kraus completes the most important part of the assignment, which is to write a war story that doesn't glorify war. Reading it during yet another war is not a fun or enjoyable task, but there is value in understanding and validation and seeing that yes, it has always been like this, and if after thousands of years of progress we are doing more of it and killing more people with less reason, why should any angel save us?

Quite gory, Kraus gets as minute and frequent in his descriptions of gore as his use of words that you have definitely never seen or heard before. The man really used the full dictionary on this one.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Angel Down (2025) by Chicago's own (though I think he may actually live a bit north in Evanston) enigmatic Daniel Kraus (who also writes middle grade books, graphic novels, wrote a book about how The Night of the Living Dead changed his life, wrote The Shape of Water with Guillermo del Toro, and says he has written five books since this one(!), like a total of 25 or more books so far) will not be a favorite of many general readers, I fear, but I think it is exhilarating, very dark, and apocalyptic. It's a story told in one sentence that ends with a series of ands and a comma, that begins mid-sentence, so maybe it's not even a sentence, it is endless, like this review, the theme of war he depicts as endless and graphically violent.

". . . the dreary certainty that the shriek won't ever end, just like the war won't ever end, like the carnage won't ever end, it's a sentence in a book careening without periods, gasping with too many commas, a sentence that, one begun, can't ever be stopped, a sentence doomed to loop back on itself to form a terrible black wheel that, sooner or later, will drag each and every person to their grave,”

I listened to it, so I got the feel of its propulsive, kinetic, sort of with a racing to The End of the World feel, while at the same time I understand why people might want to throw it across the room for its over-the-top gruesome body horror. The book depicts five "doughboys" in WWI, a despicable, brutally violent war, the "war to end all wars" supposedly that he says was really just the beginning of the real soul-less machine of contemporary war we live in now.

Private Cyril Bagger is a con man, a gambler that fleeces everyone, a draft dodger who was forced to enlist, and he joins with four other less than reputable guys to find just what it is might be shrieking in a field, and lo and behold it is an Angel, come down to Earth, but just in case you were wondering if this angel, like the second coming of Jesus , might be coming to Save the World and end the war (Spoiler alert), this angel. . . well, if you know anything about the Holy Bible, you know Satan is a Fallen Angel, so there we are. So this is an apocalyptic scream of a book against our propensity for violence, a book about endless hatred endlessly destroying us, and greed, always greed, as part of the foundation for all the murder. It begins sounding like a WWI novel with turn of the century language and concludes like the Book of Revelation, in a sort of Biblical (but essentially anti-religious) tempest against Man the Killer.

Along the way Kraus (who says in this one he tried not to do too much research, not to reread all the anti-war books such as Catch 22 or War and Peace (which, interestingly, I am about a fifth of the way in rereading), so he would not be tempted to be too much in conversation with them, but to create something original, which I think--like it or not--he succeeded in doing. But I think he is nevertheless in conversation with the great anti-war novels of all time, so there. And then Kraus gives nods to zombies/vampires/real life monsters from war and horror literature and a major trope is Chicago's (Oak Park's) own Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and his many fantastical stories of heroes fighting villains. There are no heroes in Angel Down; our flawed main characters quote Tarzan especially all the time as they imagine fighting monsters heroically on the battle fields.

As an adult adhd guy who writes and talks fast, I loved this book, as bitter as it is language-loving, just effervescent with it. I can see why so many have not and will not see finish it. It is deliberately offensive, very male (though decidedly anti-macho), and even anti-human in many ways if you think how we race headlong to the Eve of Destruction. How to say devastatingly grim and exhilarating at the same time?

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoosh. This year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner. And goddamn. Funnily enough, I had bought a copy this past Saturday, so I was lucky enough to be able to start the book right away. No, I did not have a premonition that it would win the Pulitzer (I did not see that coming at all, who did?) but it had been on my radar because it sounded fantastic.


And fantastic it definitely was. What a nonstop adrenaline-fueled, violent, ferocious, spiritual, philosophical-tinged, psychological, antiwar novel. You may have heard about its selling point: the story is written as one extremely long sentence. I’ve read a few books with that style, but here, the sentence is broken up into bite-sized paragraphs so it’s a lot more aesthetically pleasing than just seeing full blocks of text on the page. I gotta admit this formatting adds to the rhythmic vibe.


In a nutshell, the story is about a Private Cyril Bagger trying to survive the atrocities of World War 1 so he can gleefully return to his life of scheming. ”grievers make the best marks and postwar America's going to be lousy with grievers” He and four other soldiers are tasked with euthanizing a wounded soldier. However, what they discover is not a mere mortal but a fallen angel who has supposedly been struck down by the artillery fire. And the narrative goes off from there.


I blasted through this thing. Pun intended. It is immediately addictive and enveloping. I predict that several naysayers are going to be quite impressed with this author’s writing style. The prose, the prose, the prose is outstanding. Brutally vivid, metaphoric, allegorical, playfully mischievous, even Faulknerian. It’s an in-your-face genre mashup: literary, horror, supernatural, thriller, war epic, character study. It keeps you on your toes with an always pulsating plot, yet still pondering important questions and talking points: the pointlessness of war, beliefs in higher beings or higher callings, disillusionment with life and the state of the world, taking a look at one’s own moral compass, reflecting on one’s inner demons.


Some threads that kept fascinating me during my reading experience: 1) It was interesting seeing the different ways these five soldiers planned on possessing the angel; they each had their own agendas and self-interests. 2) For me, the angel could’ve been a thematic allegory for weaponry and mass destruction. An interesting contrast considering angels are emblems of purity. // My brain was in free fall. My analytical mind was always in overdrive despite the excitement of also wanting to race through the plot.


“you see what you need to see”


Yeah, this was totally deserving of this year’s Pulitzer. (I also loved the two other finalists, just as experimental as this one; it’s a great trio). A story that is steeped in greed, paranoia, blood thirst, survival, chance, faith. A blast, a mindfuck, a wordsmith delight, a fever dream, a genre mashup of the gods. Okay, I can finally take a breath.

[Casey Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am of the opinion that this book is a masterpiece. I can see it becoming required reading in schools. Becoming a classic. This is not an easy read, at all. I feel the same way about it that I felt about SGJ's The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.... it's difficult, in more ways than one, but beyond worth it. Written in one long sentence, which I questioned at first, but the first chapter provides insight into why, the book takes place during WWI. A group of soldiers discovers an angel shot down on the battlefield. This book is devastating. A harsh look at war, the power of violence, the devastation on a battlefield externally but also internally, and how to maintain humanity in its midst. These themes make it timeless, furthering my belief that it will become a classic. On top of that, it is expertly written. I am beyond impressed with this book. It's one of those that you sit in silence contemplating for a long time after. This one is going to stay with me for a long time.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this might be my second favorite book of all time. Holy shit.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in the middle of 2025, and then won the Pulitzer this past May. I didn't know about the Pulitzer, nor the subject of the book, beyond a being a novel set during WWI. This author also wrote Whalefall. No, I didn't tie the name together.

Having read the book, can I say I know whether it's worth the Pulitzer win? I surely can't, and I don't mean that in a bad way. My thought is that time will tell. It usually does when it comes to books that stand out. Some Pulitzer books I've read are obvious, but the awards can be subjective as artwork. The segue then is that to me, Kraus paints a picture of humankind here. He does it using the setting of war, which really is mankind at our ugliest. He purposely draws characters that few could like, and plays out their words with an unusual, abrupt style, written in one what has been described in a single continuous sentence. That's only somewhat true. I got used to the structure within 20 pages. By the end, there is a meaning and a point to be found. Certain aspects, or one character could be called ambiguous though. Each reader may see this element of the book differently. Maybe the ending could be seen from different perspectives as well, but I didn't see it that way, and I liked the meaning I found. 4.25

[Nick Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relentless, endearing, shocking... This story of WWI soldiers who find a celestial being on the battlefield is the literary equivalent of a one-shot war movie.

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those books where I understand and even somewhat appreciate what the author was doing, I just really didn't enjoy the process of reading it.

Five World War I soldiers, widely considered to be the worst in their division, are tasked with "taking care of" someone screaming in No Man's Land. The someone turns out to be something -- an angel. I like that in this novel, Kraus very much subscribes to the philosophy of "every angel is terrifying." I even somewhat liked his protagonist, Bagger, a con man who keeps being tempted toward being a better person, in spite of himself.

What I didn't like was the graphic violence, which is both Kraus' point -- that war is truly hell -- and excessive, too close to being gloried in. Similarly, Kraus has chosen to write this novel in one long sentence, strung together by endless ands. This is a decision rooted in an obvious metaphor -- the war feels unrelenting to Bagger -- but boy, is it exhausting to read. Which I know is the point, but.

Like I said -- I admire Kraus for going for ideas! Themes! Style! I would rather a big swing that doesn't work than a tepid effort. But this was still a bit of a whiff for me.

[Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

and self-indulgent, pretentious, plotless brain rot

and might have made a decent short story if the writer's editor did his job

and don't waste your time or money on this crap

and

and

and

and less than one star

and are there negative stars?

[Jack Ace · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an intriguing premise! Five soldiers sent into the nightmare of No Man’s Land expecting to find a wounded man—and instead discovering a fallen angel. That got my attention immediately.
Angel Down turned into quite a page-turning tale. I loved the way Daniel Kraus mixes the brutality and chaos of war with supernatural elements, especially the motif of the fallen angel lying in the middle of a battlefield. There’s something wonderfully strange about putting something celestial right in the mud, blood and destruction of World War I. The soldiers’ greed, paranoia and desperation make the supernatural encounter even more unsettling. A dark, unusual and compelling horror story with a fantastic central idea. Definitely one that kept me turning those pages.

[CYIReadBooks (Claire) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a fan of Daniel Kraus, having loved The Living Dead (5 stars) and enjoyed Whalefall (3 stars), but Angel Down was a massive letdown. The writing style—endless run-on sentences with "and this, and that" structure—grated on my nerves from the start. It felt chaotic and lacked any sense of flow, making it impossible for me to connect with the story. The graphic, gory details were the only highlights, but even those couldn’t save the book. I couldn’t push through and had to DNF. Disappointing, given Kraus’s talent.

I received a DRC from Atria books through NetGalley, and an ARC from Atria Books. This review is my own and reflects my honest thoughts and opinions.

[Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an amazingly wild and creative ride!! What started as a war story transformed into something(s?) completely different, continuing to develop and morph until its totally original and satisfying conclusion.
Wow.
WOW!!
To give too many details away here would make me a spoiler of narrative delights, and I want zero part of that, so I'll just say that this story rewards the suspension of disbelief(s?) and honors wonderful stretches of one's imagination in fantastic(fantastical?) and surprisingly life affirming ways.
Getyousomeofthisrighthereyo

4 1/2 Wondrous Stars

[Sharmyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

And the five most useless, dispensable men in the 43rd Division are sent to euthanise a shrieking soldier who is causing troops to go insane, instead they find an angel trapped in barbed wire who was shot from the heavens,

And much like the movie 1917 which is filmed in a continuous shot, this novel is written in one continuous sentence, making the reader feel the pressing relentlessness and urgency of being on the dirty frontlines of war,

And the poetic prose and the gloomy mood make is clear why this book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, much like the last winner in the horror category, 2007’s The Road the plot’s bleakness and the short choppy paragraphs leave you feeling emotionally exhausted when you turn the last page,

And now I need to go return this to the library because of course there are dozens of holds waiting for this,

and and and and