Set in contemporary Belfast, Silverback opens with the trial of Robert Rustig, accused of murdering his father, a former loyalist hardman who, once that line of business was over, had taken to cross dressing and performing as his female alter ego in local nightclubs. James Fechner, a surgeon, is on the jury, and finds himself drawn to Rusting, who is acquitted but perhaps not innocent. After the trial, he inserts himself - in another guise - into Rusting's life, and the two form a close, ambiguous and dark relationship. Silverback is a powerful portrayal of toxic masculinity. The voice is unforgettable - plain, bold, sometimes even playful. The conclusion is as devastating as it is unexpected.

Set in contemporary Belfast, Silverback opens with the trial of Robert Rustig, accused of murdering his father, a former loyalist hardman who, once that line of business was over, had taken to cross dressing and performing as his female alter ego in local nightclubs. James Fechner, a surgeon, is on the jury, and finds himself drawn to Rusting, who is acquitted but perhaps not innocent. After the trial, he inserts himself - in another guise - into Rusting's life, and the two form a close, ambiguous and dark relationship. Silverback is a powerful portrayal of toxic masculinity. The voice is unforgettable - plain, bold, sometimes even playful. The conclusion is as devastating as it is unexpected.

"Fully engaging, well-written, very imaginative . . . A wonderful debut." -- Irish Times "When you read a novel cover to cover in one day, you know it's something exceptional." -- John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Outside an east Belfast mission hall, pastor and family man Samuel Orr meets Anna, a young Beckett scholar. They embark on an intense, passionate affair, their connection both intellectual and erotic. When Anna falls pregnant, the affair is revealed. The repercussions are slow to emerge but inescapable, and the fallout, when it finally comes, is shocking. Over thirty years later Sam, their son, is in New York, living a steady, guarded life, his childhood and family safely abandoned. But when the past once more crashes into his life, he is forced to confront the fears he has kept close all these years. "Brilliantly written throughout . . . With tight, dispassionate, superbly controlled prose, Harrison channels the spirit of Don DeLillo or Camus." -- Irish Independent "Harrison's elegant prose and deeply felt characters create a novel with a fiercely beating heart." -- Kirkus Reviews "Written with burning intensity . . . Powerful." -- Daily Mail

Although applications for Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) techniques are more widely used in the aerospace industry today, opportunities to anchor the response predictions using measured data from a flight-like launch vehicle structure are still quite valuable. Response and excitation data from a ground acoustic test at the Marshall Space Flight Center permitted the authors to compare and evaluate several modeling techniques available in the SEA module of the commercial code VA One. This paper provides an example of vibration response estimates developed using different modeling approaches to both approximate and bound the response of a flight-like vehicle panel. Since both vibration response and acoustic levels near the panel were available from the ground test, the evaluation provided an opportunity to learn how well the different modeling options can match band-averaged spectra developed from the test data. Additional work was performed to understand the spatial averaging of the measurements across the panel from measured data. Finally an evaluation/comparison of two conversion approaches from the statistical average response results that are output from an SEA analysis to a more useful envelope of response spectra appropriate to specify design and test vibration levels for a new vehicle.

"Fully engaging, well-written, very imaginative . . . A wonderful debut." -- Irish Times "When you read a novel cover to cover in one day, you know it's something exceptional." -- John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Outside an east Belfast mission hall, pastor and family man Samuel Orr meets Anna, a young Beckett scholar. They embark on an intense, passionate affair, their connection both intellectual and erotic. When Anna falls pregnant, the affair is revealed. The repercussions are slow to emerge but inescapable, and the fallout, when it finally comes, is shocking. Over thirty years later Sam, their son, is in New York, living a steady, guarded life, his childhood and family safely abandoned. But when the past once more crashes into his life, he is forced to confront the fears he has kept close all these years. "Brilliantly written throughout . . . With tight, dispassionate, superbly controlled prose, Harrison channels the spirit of Don DeLillo or Camus." -- Irish Independent "Harrison's elegant prose and deeply felt characters create a novel with a fiercely beating heart." -- Kirkus Reviews "Written with burning intensity . . . Powerful." -- Daily Mail