Written in the form of a 19th-century notebook of ornithological observations, Field Notes from an Extinction follows the life and work of one Ignatius Green, a fictitious English scientist dispatched by the Royal Society to the remote island of Tor Mor off the northern Irish coast. Green, a widower, is single-minded and self-righteous, brilliant and bumbling. He is determined to set the scientific record straight on the mating rituals, feeding and care of hatchlings, and other minutiae he can gather about the Great Auk (pinguinus impennis).

Green’s world is shattered when his monthly goods delivery arrives ravaged by the local Irish townsmen. His fury at the irimpertinence is matched only by his dismay at finding a small child amid the shipment – dirty, abandoned, mute, and utterly feral and unmanageable. Worse, the locals are growing restless and hungry. And there is talk sweeping the land of a terrifying woman with unnatural power.

Green fights for his survival against brigandsand hunger and, most fearsome, the resolve of a fierce and angry child. And, perhaps, for a wider understanding of family amidst roiling societal unrest.

"Vividly told, original in form, ambitious in scope and completely winning in its characterisation of the unlikely pair at its centre, a devoted English ornithologist and the young Irish girl he is saddled with against his will, Field Notes from an Extinction winds tighter and tighter its noose of horror until almost unbearable – 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

Praise for The Gospel of Orla

“Walls’s marvellous novel asks what we might look for by way of consolation. A miracle shouldn’t be too much to ask.”—Claire Luchette, The New York Times Book Review

“By turnsfunny, surprising, moving. With a poet’s control and playfulness, it paints a convincing portrait of a teenagers grief and resilience."—Niamh Donnelly, The Irish Times

 "Utterly convincing and fresh and original."— Colm Tóibín