Our March Book of the Month is the gripping, funny, mysterious, timely and touching novel from The Gospel of Orla author Eoghan Walls — Field Notes from an Extinction. Set on an isolated island in the mid-19th century off the northern tip of Ireland, it may not immediately seem like a story that relates to our world at all, and yet it speaks to something deeply inherent in human nature when pushed to the boundaries of desperation, disaster and desolation. Written in an epistolary style — through newspapers, letters, and primarily one man’s ornithological journal — we are brought close to the heartbeat of the characters as they navigate survival in tumultuous times.
Told mainly through his journal, English scientist Ignatius Green’s foremost and only goal is to pursue his field research on a remote island, studying the last colony of Great Auks (a now-extinct flightless bird). Entirely consumed by his work, he appears largely unaware of the political unrest between his country and the one he inhabits, as well as the food shortages devastating the mainland — until his monthly delivery of supplies arrives pillaged and, even more unexpectedly, with a small, ill, feral, lice-infested child hidden within. Forced face-to-face with the living consequences of the starving nation across the water, Ignatius is initially — and rather humorously — frustrated by this messy, non-verbal hurricane in the shape of a child, who disrupts his careful observations of his breeding pairs of garefowl (which he amusingly names after great literary and historical pairs). Despite his exasperation, he nevertheless attempts to care for her: washing her, sharing his food, and gradually teaching her the basics of civility.
Alongside this narrative, the novel is interspersed with the harsh realities of 1840s Ireland, with newspaper excerpts detailing violent clashes between bailiffs and struggling tenants — scenes that were all too common during the Great Famine. It is this wider scope that sharply juxtaposes Ignatius’s narrow worldview, as he sees himself as separate from the devastation unfolding across the water — until that distance begins to collapse through an unexpected and deeply human connection.
Balancing satire and survival, violence and vulnerability, intellect and emotion, Eoghan Walls has created a singular work of historical fiction that captures the core of human experience — grief, love, and resilience — at a time when civilisation itself seems to be unravelling in the pursuit of land and power.
Perhaps there is something remarkably relatable in human nature across centuries, even in fiction.
“Vividly told, original in form, ambitious in scope and completely winning in its characterisation of the unlikely pair at its centre… a stark and compelling tale. Eoghan Walls has immaculate comic timing and the heart of a tragedian who knows how to bide his time – and land his gut-punches.”
— Lucy Caldwell, winner of the BBC Short Story Prize and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature“Readers will find much to admire, including a third-act twist. This blistering historical is worth a look.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A compelling and convincing story of survival and apocalypse.”
—Nial Hegarty, The Irish Times
“A unique and richly imagined novel”
—Graeme Macrae Burnet, NYTBR (Booker finalist)
“Rarely have I read a contemporary novel that works so gracefully and yet so implacably on so many levels—dramatically, emotionally, and morally. It is a major accomplishment.”
—Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, winner of the National Medal of the Humanities
Field Notes from an Extinction is published by Seven Stories Press UK
9781911710288 | PB | £12.99 | 5th March 2026
