Sagaspedia
Angel Down
Summary
France, 1918, the last stretch of World War I. In the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the trenches are mud and blood, and a strange shriek coming from no man's land is driving the American troops out of their minds.
Major General Reis, more focused on his career than his men, orders Private Cyril Bagger to find out what it is. Bagger, a former draft dodger, heads out with four others: young Arno, the brute Popkin, jittery Goodspeed and Veck, wrecked by shell shock.
What they find is an angel, tangled in barbed wire and glowing in the middle of the field. Each man sees in her the face of a woman he knows. Sure that Reis will use her to climb the ranks, the five desert and haul the angel through artillery fire, bickering all the way. Each one wants to win her over and get his wish granted.
One more thing: the whole book is a single sentence, broken only by paragraphs.
Awards and nominees
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2026 · Fiction
Beat: Audition (Katie Kitamura), Stag Dance (Torrey Peters)
Trivia
- The book opens mid-sentence and ends on a comma.
- Kraus is known for horror and his work with Guillermo del Toro. The Pulitzer jury called the book a stylistic tour de force.
- In January 2026, Imagine Entertainment began developing a film version. The studio had already adapted Kraus's novel Whalefall.
Characters
- Cyril BaggerA former draft dodger turned private, sent to find the source of the shriek.
- ArnoThe youngest and most innocent of the group.
- PopkinThe squad's brute.
- VeckA soldier shattered by shell shock.
- ReisA major general who only cares about his next promotion.
About the author
Daniel KrausAuthor of Angel Down, 2026 Pulitzer Prize for FictionAmerican horror writer who spent years moving between young adult novels, collaborations with Guillermo del Toro and George A. Romero, and comics. He co-wrote the novel of The Shape of Water with del Toro and finished a book Romero left incomplete. In 2026 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with Angel Down, a war novel written as a single sentence.
Full biography →Sources: en.wikipedia.org
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