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Spill Simmer Falter Wither, the debut novel from Sara Baume, is a masterpiece of language, a demonstration of the heights that words are able to reach when guided by a master hand. The narrator Ray addresses the reader through his bloodthirsty, bedraggled, newly adopted mongrel One Eye, who becomes the first companion he has known in his fifty-seven years, apart from the distant father who kept him separated from human love and company. As Ray and One Eye become intimately entwined, One Eye becomes the focal point of a life which until this point totally lacked love or purpose. As a result, Ray’s loyalty towards One Eye builds with incredible intensity. When local authorities threaten to take him away after an incident in which another dog is left wounded, Ray and One Eye go on the run.

Baume’s skill for withholding and providing information is pitch perfect. The use of third-person narrative draws the reader intimately to the breast of the narrator while endowing them with the heightened senses of a canine, as filtered through Ray’s human perspective. Here, Baume flexes some muscle with her ability to defamiliarize contemporary Ireland through adept, jolting descriptions and wordplay. Her portrayal of man, his thoughts and actions and bodily functions, achieves a level of grotesqueness rarely approached so unflinchingly. This is a beautifully jarring novel recommended for fans of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, as well as fans of gorgeously-wrought words in general.