About to Fall Apart

by Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Unknown Author

AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW

'Poignant and tender.' FERDIA LENNON
'A dynamic voice.' IRENOSEN OKOJIE
'Lushly written and formally audacious . . . moving.' NICOLAS PADAMSEE

This is the story of one man's weekend, a weekend in which everything could change

These lines could change everything /
He sips more of his tinny /
Imagines a new life

Aidy's just punched a co-worker, but he hasn't got time to deal with the fallout. With a deadline fast looming he must get home, knuckle down and finish the story he's been working on, a story he hasn't been able to stop thinking about. It's the story of a falling plane and of a grieving mother.

Set across one weekend, About to Fall Apart is the exhilarating story of a man of mixed heritage - living on the Irish border - as he tries to stay positive, reconnect with his children and maybe, even, find his own birth mother.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry

176 pages, Hardcover

About the author

Ashley Hickson-Lovence is the author of the novels The 392, Your Show and Wild East — overall winner of the East Anglian Book Awards 2024 and the YA winner of the Diverse Book Awards 2025. His poetry collection Why I Am Not a Bus Driver released with Bad Betty Press in 2025 includes the poem “Munster Road,” which was highly commended for Best Single Poem by the Forward Prize and was featured in the Forward Prize Book of Poetry 2026. Ashley has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia, and his nominations include the Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature 2023. His new novel About To Fall Apart will be published by Faber in April 2026, and his next YA verse novel Dead Ends will be released in August 2026.

Reviews

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

Aidy is working to a deadline. He can't think about the consequences of punching a work colleague or whether he'll have a job come Monday; he can't even think about when or if his birth mother will reply to his letter; he can't think about the mess his life has become. He needs to write and the story is vivid in his mind. He needs to write but he's forgotten that it's his weekend with his daughter ...

About to Fall Apart is a story within a story and I do enjoy those. Aidy is an interesting character who seems unable to stop himself getting into trouble. He has a string of broken relationships and has difficulty being relaxed with his children, particularly his eldest son. But he is trying hard to get himself on the right track with his writing, work and his family. He hopes the story he is writing will just be the start of good things.

Although this is written as a stream of consciousness it didn't put me off. The plot is engaging and even though it is only a short novel (novella?) it packs quite a punch.

I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Faber & Faber for the digital review copy.

[Bukola Akinyemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wordplay on the page, every single line a punchline.

If you love words, the poetic use of words, their placement on a page, the way they convey meaning and extract emotions, sensory language, you will absolutely adore About to Fall Apart by Ashley Hickson-Lovence.

At the heart of this book is the story of Aidy, a sixty-six year old mixed heritage man who grew up with a loving adoptive family but desperately longs to meet his birth mother.

This longing is hurts more than the grief of losing someone to death. It’s the grief of his mother not wanting to find him.

Aidy is an author writing a story about a footballer who died in a plane crash. The footballer’s mum is grieving the death of her son.

Aidy lives alone but has his three children visit. We read about his relationship with his grown children and their mothers. The women on his life past and present. His relationship with his work colleagues and the experience of being observed as different.

[BookOfCinz Reading Retreat Host · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was different in a good way, once you get use to see this / ... A LOT.

I did enjoy being in the world of Aidy, I was so endeared to him as a character who seems to be going through a lot and is trying to do his best.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

but Aidy is used to it now / hell be seventy soon / being a man of mixed heritage here in this island of Ireland / half-caste / a half-breed / as he used to be called by many when he was young / he can't not notice that little look / the not-so-subtle double-take people do when they see him enter certain spaces / a millisecond of hesitation / so small it's unnoticeable to the untrained eye / but as a man of colour / Aidy knows there's sometimes more to it / it's not just here at Dulrush Lodge / not just here straddling the borderlands of Belleek / & it's not necessarily this young girl's fault / it's just how it is really / & Aidy knows it's worse in other countries / has seen it for himself working all over the world / & that's why he never really complains / not with his mouth anyway / but today / especially with his kids with him / & after what happened yesterday at St Angelo / he's feeling a little more sensitive than usual / of course it's not just here / it could be in the local Spar / or the local library / it's heavy / the burden of being a Black man sometimes / his head hurts / his heart hurts / his hand hurts

 
The novelist, poet, literary critic and Creative Writing Lecturers third adult novel – his second “Your Show”, a fictionalised biography of Uriah Rennie (the first black referee in the Premier League) was Gordon Burn longlisted and East Anglia Book Award shortlisted – and this book too has a football theme underlying it (and an Arsenal-Manchester Utd match playing out on the last of the three days in which it is set).
 
Told in a distinct style – short phrases separated by “/” – the novel tells the story of Aidy.  Born in the 1950s to an Irish mother and black father, he was given up for adoption before one but ended in foster care.  In the book, and in his late sixties, and working as an odd-job man at a local small airfield.  Three times married and three times separated (and with a child from each marriage) he has an internet relationship with a Ukrainian lady in what he thinks may be a scam.
 
At the book’s opening he is driving form work after having punched a man who made a racist comment (the n-word) and unsure if he still has a job plans to spend the weekend writing a 5000 word story for a short story prize (his literary career so far limited to a self-published and barely sold poetry collection).  His subject is a fictionalised account of the real-life death of the Argentinian footballer Emilino Sala (who died in a light aircraft crash en route from Nantes to sign for Cardiff) – which starts with the aircraft and then features Sala’s mother as she has to deal not just with the loss of her son but the subsequent death of her husband. 
 
Aidy himself still has never known his mother – although he did trace his father to Grenada a few years before – despite writing to an address he was given for her; and of course we know that Sala’s story is a way of trying to explore how a mother might react to losing her child.
 
But his plans are slightly thwarted when his youngest child – a daughter just hitting 16 – arrives for one of her stays (which he had forgotten) followed by his middle son – but the three of them have a Sunday brunch at the restaurant where his oldest son (with who he has had a breach since Aidy’s reaction to finding he was in a serious gay relationship) works – enabling him to have one of the few times he has had his children together.  
 
Overall, I thought this was an excellent novel (almost novella) and I was very impressed when I checked the author and realised that while he has part Grenadian and Irish descent he is both English based and much younger than a protagonist in Aidy that he appears to capture with genuine insight.
 
My thanks to Faber for an ARC via NetGalley
 

didn't manage to get any sleep in the eight or so hours it took to get there / & he felt as lost as ever from the moment he landed / his light-ish skin marking him out as an outsider / neither this nor that / somewhere in between / it's similar back in Belleek / the village straddles the border / history cuts right through / a line through the bridge / north vs south / & Aidy straddles a border of his own / a halfway house / between black & white / Irish & non-Irish / past & present / from the moment he stepped off the plane just outside St Georges there was a swelling strangeness / a sweltering of something not quite right / hard to put into words / for a start everything was more

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

right now his head is swelling with a long-unfelt joy / swirling with a pleasure that's been a long time coming / his head's beginning to spin / thinking about Eimear & Osh & Leo somewhere & being here & Kateryna & the short story competition & maybe fucking winning it & making something of himself for once & maybe then his real mum might sit up & take notice / recognise his name & want to see him / acknowledge he exists /

About to Fall Apart (2026) is Ashley Hickson-Lovence's most recent adult novel since his 2022 Your Show, which was a carefully researched, respectfully presented but literarily innovative take on the career of football referee, the first black official in the top flight.

And About to Fall Apart also has a football backdrop - the protagonist and his family Man U fans (and during the 3 days of the novel they scrape a draw with Arsenal), and with a significant element relating to the death of Emiliano Sala (see below).

But the novel is rooted in Hickson-Lovence's own family and the story, told and reimagined with permission, of an uncle. living in Belleek on the Ireland/Northern Ireland border, who the family only discovered on the death of the author's paternal grandmother, as the author explains in this interview:

So in 2015 my Irish grandmother passed away quite suddenly. And a few months after she passed, we found letters that she’d been hiding from a man claiming to be her son, a man who lived in Ireland. We wanted to, as a family, come together and find out more about this secret man. And we soon found out, having read these letters and then eventually making contact with him, he was my grandmother’s first born. He was conceived in the mid-1950s, out of wedlock. His dad was a Ghanaian man, and before his first birthday, he was taken away from my grandmother, and they never met at all afterwards.

About to Fall Apart is told by Aidy, who has a similar background. Born in the late 1950s, of mixed race (an Irish mother and Grenadian father), he was taken away aged 11 months and ends up in a foster family. He has attempted over the years to trace his parents and was able to travel to Grenada to meet his father, but who remember little about his mother, Aidy conceived on a brief visit to the UK:

the journey was turbulent / he remembers / not helping settle his already unsettled stomach / didn't manage to get any sleep in the eight or so hours it took to get there / & he felt as lost as ever from the moment he landed / his lighter skin marking him out as an outsider / neither this nor that / somewhere in between / it's similar back in Belleek / the village straddles the border / history cuts right through / a line through the bridge / north vs south / & Aidy straddles a border of his own / a halfway house / between black & white / Irish & non-Irish / past & present / from the moment he stepped off the plane just outside St George's there was a swelling strangeness / a sweltering of something not quite right /

Aidy, now in his late 60s, lives in Belleek, on the Irish side. Some time earlier he had written a brief letter (reproduced in the novel, and taken almost verbatim from that received by Hickson-Lovence's grandmother) to an address provided by a dying blood relative, but had received no reply.

As the novel opens, on a Friday, Aidy is driving away from his job where he had punched a man who subjected him to a racial slur:

AIDY DIDN'T WANNA PUNCH HIM / HE REALLY DIDN'T / but that guy had it coming / & now the knuckles of his right hand are throbbing / bulging baby-cheek pink / he's gritted-teeth seething / speeding out of the car park gripping the steering wheel of his Nissan Qashqai handlebar-tight / his fist stings / blood seeping sore / slow gushing burgundy / red to darker red / he's been taunted since a toothless toddler / called all sorts / but even now / after all these years / it's hard not to retaliate when people / colleagues / friends even / can't see past the darker tinge of his skin / he's heard every slur imaginable / but that word in particular still arouses a fury in him impossible to ignore / impossible to control

This an echo of an incident many years earlier, when, similarly triggered, he has beaten a man so savegely that Aidy's own hands were permanently injured, cutting short a promising boxing career.

Aidy has aspirations to be a writer, and he is working on a 5000 word short-story inspired by the death in 2019, in a crash of a small plane while travelling from his old club Nantes to his new club Cardiff, of professional footballer Emiliano Sala, which he needs to submit to a writing competition by Sunday evening.

he reacquaints himself with the voice of his main character / relearns the language of the frightened footballer / who himself / in time / hopes to learn the language of the pilot who's muttering something unsettling / there's something definitely wrong / journey not going how it should be / the smoke-belching plane wobbling increasingly unsteady / shaking erratically in the stormy purgatory above the Channel /

The novel's title taken from a prescient WhatsApp voice message sent by the footballer shortly before take-off on the second, and fatal, leg of the flight, referring to the dubious condition of the Piper small plane.

But Aidy has forgotten that it is his weekend with his 16 year old daughter, Eimear, the youngest of three children (the elder two sons Osh & Leo) from three different relationships. Aidy is also in a virtual relationship with a younger Ukranian woman, Kateryna, suspecting he is likely being conned, but hoping that it is real.

The novel is set over the three days until Sunday evening, as Aidy meets up with his three children, a rare occurence; works on his story, which includes a section told from the plane crash (in his version, unlike reality where Sala is suspected to have passed out from CO poisoning, the footballer is conscious throughout the ordeal), a second session told from the PoV of Sala's Argentinian mother, and a third musing on death generally; and recalls the search for his biological family as well as the estrangement his situation and mixed-race have caused throughout his life.

Music also infuses the text, Gemma Dunleavy's Up De Flats a particular signature of the family weekend.

As shown from the quotes above, this short novel is told in an immediate, prose-poetic, style using "/" as punctuation, and in his afterword the author acknowledges that he is sylistically indebted to Caleb Femi, Mary Jean Chan, Lewis Buxton, Joelle Taylor, Inua Ellams and Max Porter for their innovative use of the forward slash form.

And the result is powerful - a propulsive read, literarily innovative and a compassionate reimagining of his Uncle's life, as well as Sala's tragic story. A novel one hopes was in the Booker and Goldsmiths conversation, and which would have graced either list.

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure I would like this book when I started it, the writing is/ very different/ with all the words/separated like this/into one long sentence/all together... but it really worked in the end, it gives this short novel some musicality and dynamism. We follow Aidy, a seventy-something man who is trying to finish a short story he wants to submit to a writing competition, and is home from work after having punched a racist customer. He has never known his mother, who is Irish, and has traced back his Black father to Grenada, and he thinks about his mother a lot.
It's hard to really describe the book but I loved the writing and the pace, slow and careful. Parts of it reminded me of Claire Keegan, the way we really get into the character's head, the stream of consciousness and the endless regrets.
I found it touching and poetic and I'm really glad I gave it a try, I'd love to read more by Ashley Hickson-Lovence.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

[Jessie Elland · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was the cover that made me pick up this book; that electric blue and green, spiky writing haloing a half hidden head. The blurb promised something exhilarating and essential. But I promptly put it down after skimming its first page.
No punctuation other than the forward slash? No thanks.
Still, as I moved through the bookshop I kept thinking about the book, it’s cover, and all of its slashes. I was curious about it. I could hate it, I could love it, either way, I would definitely learn something from it. I picked it back up and bought it.

The next day I had finished it, having been completely unable to put it down.

The forward slash, though strange at first, was very easy to fall into rhythm with. The best way I can describe it, is it was like becoming fluent in another language. Hickson-Lovence uses his choice of punctuation with such dexterity to manipulate rhythm. Sometimes it’s a deliberate beat, slowly building, allowing us to ponder and meander. Other times it spirals quick and breathless, and we’re anxious to read faster and faster. It also created such an immediate intimacy with the protagonist, Aidy. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where I have felt so in a character’s mind. Aidy has a lot going on in his world; his search for his birth mother, the struggle to forge relationships with each of his three children, his online girlfriend who may or may not be a catfish, the co-worker he has just punched, his new writing project and its looming deadline. His thoughts overlap constantly and we experience them at the exact same time he does. It makes the book so fresh and alive. With it too is a soft melancholy that Hickson-Lovence never forces, but allows to breathe just enough so that it really really lands.

One of my favourite things about this book was how Hickson-Lovence writes ABOUT writing. How frustrating, how exhilarating, how compulsive, how innate it is. Aidy’s rumination on his project were some of my favourite passages.

Reading About To Fall Apart is a truly unique experience. I think it’s a book that will really stay with me, not only for its poignant exploration into the love and pain and longing in the everyday, but for the passion and desire to innovate Hickson-Lovence so clearly holds for his art.

[Jamad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aidy over one strained weekend / a punch at work that can’t be undone / consequences hovering but never quite faced

He retreats into writing / a story of a plane falling from the sky / a grieving mother circling loss / the two narratives bleeding into each other / neither fully formed

Phone calls half made / children half seen / a relationship fraying at the edges / thoughts of his birth mother / questions of race and belonging / all touched on / none settled

He walks / he thinks / he circles / work pressure / money pressure / a sense of things slipping / always slipping

Short lines / broken rhythm / fragments instead of scenes / repetition instead of development / the form mirroring collapse

But for me it stayed at the level of sketch / characters thinly drawn / emotions hinted at rather than felt / the parallel story never quite earning its place

More form than substance / the technique doing most of the work / the content struggling to keep up

If you are the type of reader who likes sentences and paragraphs / who wants scenes to build and characters to deepen / this is not the book for you

I can see the intention / a mind unravelling / a life on the brink / but I remained outside it

An interesting idea / not a satisfying novel

[readsbycoral · Rating 4 out of 5]

“he writes more about the mystery of grief / like the shock of stubbing a toe / wincing from the discomfort of a new pair of shoes rubbing up against your heel / or trying / & failing / to break your fall after one too many pints on a Friday night / but there’s no mark when you check / no scratch / no bruise / no scar / no graze / & you feel cheated / confused / conned / grief being that invisible pain that has outstayed its welcome /”

If words could prise themselves off the page and leap into your hands, your heart and your soul, then this would be the story that would make it happen. Hickson-Lovence breathes a lyrical magic into his writing that feels not only deeply nostalgic, but effortlessly poetic. About to Fall Apart is the story of a man of mixed heritage living on the Irish border, navigating his way through the unchartered territory of loneliness, love, parenthood, grief, identity and belonging. The narrative is propulsive, compelling and tender, and I finished the last page with my hands clenched and my cheeks damp, deeply affected by Hickson-Lovence’s masterful storytelling.

Thank you @ahicksonlovence @faberbooks for my beautiful copy 💙

[Murphie Magee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick paced, beautifully descriptive, lyrical, raw, honest.

[Chris L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In ‘About to Fall Apart’, Ashley Hickson-Lovence tells the story of a black man named Aidy in Ireland who experiences racist abuse. Since he experiences this racist abuse, he has a difficult time reconciling his racial identity with his Irish heritage. It’s as if he is a man of separate parts, and he does not know how to put those parts into a whole person. When Aidy commits his own act of violence, it further complicates his status and his own sense of identity.

I think many people right now in 2026 could relate to Aidy’s alienation and even if they might not resort to physical violence, they can relate to the anger of being reduced to their skin colour. It’s a novel told in verse, and I think that narrative technique highlights the fragmented and heightened energy of always being on edge, always waiting for the worst to happen.

‘About to Fall Apart’ is a short but tense reading experience. Hickson-Lovence has written a powerful look at the effects of racism. Highly recommended.

[eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aidy doesn't have time to deal with the consequences of having just punched a co-worker, he barely has time for himself. He must get home and finish the story he's been working on, a story he hasn't been able to stop thinking about.

Very engaging, very captivating stream of consciousness novel (novella?) with such a peculiar, interesting writing style. I will admit I was not sure it was going to be for me when I started it, but then it just sucked me in and I could not stop reading it. Maybe the fact that it is very quick and short helped, but so did how good it is. It might be short, but it still managed to pack such a punch. Aidy was such an interesting character to follow, and to be in the head of for a quick while. What will really stick with me is the writing, and I'm really interested in reading more by this author.

Many thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd & NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aidy has the weekend to write and submit a short story, a chance to finally fulfil his lifelong dream and perhaps escape the fragmented life he has built for himself, with three children by three different women and the lasting burden of never having known his mother. But the weekend does not unfold as planned, and instead of writing, he finds himself spending time with his children, gradually realising that they are the most important thing he has. Written without any punctuation other than slashes, the unusual format is initially surprising, but quickly becomes invisible as the story draws you in. What begins as an experimental structure turns into a tender and moving portrait of a man trying to find his place in life, with a simple twist that gives the story a surprisingly beautiful emotional impact.

https://redheadwithabrain.ch/index.ph...

[Reisse Myy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This works doubly well as an exploration of a dad being cringe (writing a thinly veiled sports story about his own life, for instance), and of an aging Black man reflecting on the racial violence that has marked his past and left him skirting a profound loneliness. Both men are Aidy, our main character: the tension between these versions of him is what makes the novel so remarkable, down to its very last poetic sentence.

The amount of secondhand embarrassment this gave me is a testament to its brilliant earnestness—and, ultimately, its beauty. Hickson-Lovence attempts a catharsis for Aidy that feels so genuine and yet, as we achingly understand as readers, also unobtainable. Completely brilliant.

Bonus: The irony of seeing Ed Sheeran appear in this book [at a white Irish bar where Aidy feels trepidation, seeking escape in eight beers] the very week of what essentially might be his cancellation was a prophetic bit of schadenfreude.

[Jocelyn Wintermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this story. I enjoyed the rhythm and flow of thoughts and feeling. In the story you join a mind in his thoughts over a whole weekend. All his ponderings and hopes and disappointments. It feels so relatable. Like hanging out with a cool guy.

[Tim Leggatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the way this was written- a nicely crafted story

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very intense and moving story of one man over a weekend. Quite stream of consciousness-y with very little punctuation

[John Hobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read so far in 2026. Not for everyone I suspect yet closer to Claire Keegan than the literary style might suggest. P

[Hayley]

The format is tricky for me, it's a brave and novel approach but it means my inner monologue doesn't know when to take a breath or pause!

[Rob Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ashley has such a way with words and story telling that it is hard to put his books down and this is no exception!

[Jackie Carreira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looks like a poem, reads like a novel, kept me hooked until the end. Loved it.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever and interesting writing style. I just didn’t love the main character.

[Hester Vanacker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely read, different writing style that brought a pace to it all!

[Ellie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

hate/ every /sentence is /written with these / bastard/ slashes/

[Rory Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second half of this books pulls you apart.

[Rachael Eaton · Rating 1.25 out of 5]

I found it so hard to read that it took all my brain power doing so, to the point I lost track of the plot.

[Linzi Ingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audio version but will read the book too.