A short life of the author
Max Porter (b. 1981) studied English at the University of Cambridge and worked in publishing — at Granta Books and then at Portobello Books (now Faber) — before his own fiction brought him to wider attention.
Life and Career
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers (2015) — about a father and his two young sons mourning the death of their wife/mother, visited by Crow, a figure from Ted Hughes’s poetry who is simultaneously frightening and consoling — was a sensation. The book is barely a hundred pages long and operates somewhere between novel, prose poem, and fable.
Lanny (2019) — about a gifted boy in an English village and the ancient spirit that lives beneath the land — was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Shy (2023) — set in a reform school on a single night — is his most compressed and intense work.
Major Works and Themes
Porter writes about grief, childhood, landscape, and the uncanny. His fiction is formally radical — mixing voices, typographies, and genres — but emotionally accessible. His prose is lyrical and precise.
Key Works
- Grief Is the Thing with Feathers (2015)
- Lanny (2019) — Booker shortlist
- Shy (2023)
Collecting Porter
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers (2015, Faber and Faber) — the debut — brings $30–$100. Porter signs at events. Faber first editions are the collected form.