Description

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

How do you rebuild a world that seems to be falling apart?

Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland after a long time away, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. No heat or light, no sign of his wife or child anywhere. It seems the world has forgotten that he even existed.

The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know everything about Nealon’s life, his recent bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. All Nealon needs to do is talk with him. But the more he talks the closer Nealon gets to the same trouble he was in years ago, tangled in the very crimes of which he claims to be innocent.

Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls is a story for these fractured times, dealing with how we might mend the world, and the story of a man who would let the world go to hell if he could keep his family together.

Publisher Review

This Plague of Souls is written in perfectly-pitched cadences. It captures with exquisite care a man ambushed by loss and fear, by hovering forces that are mysterious and otherworldly and beyond his control. It further establishes Mike McCormack as one of the best novelists writing now -- COLM TOIBIN This is the reason Mike McCormack is one of Ireland's best-loved novelists; he is the most modestly brilliant writer we have. His delicate abstractions are woven from the ordinary and domestic - both metaphysical and moving, McCormack's work asks the big questions about our small lives -- ANNE ENRIGHT Stark, intense, fiercely controlled . . . Mike McCormack at his best -- PAT McCABE A sombre tale shot through with glints of dark humour, in which the sins of the past at once haunt and illuminate the present. A compelling read -- JOHN BANVILLE This is a darkly marvellous novel: at once intimate, domestic and poignant, then speculative, hard-boiled and wild. That McCormack can be so convincing, so skilled in both registers is remarkable. That he can do it concurrently is genius -- LISA McINERNEY It was deliciously sinister and reminded me that nobody captures the cold beauty and cruelty of the world like Mike; I just know I'm going to be chewing it over in my mind for weeks -- SARA BAUME Mike McCormack's fiction has always had a philosophical bent, and none more so than in This Plague of Souls. In Nealon, we're given access to the mind of a man minutely attuned to every movement and vibration of his own consciousness, a man who is psychologically astute but receptive, too, to the hidden rhythms and frequencies of reality. There is a beautiful surreal feel to this novel, with its limbo landscape and night-time drives, but it is Nealon's meditation on family and fatherhood - and what the loss of those might mean - that will linger long in the reader afterwards -- MARY COSTELLO Praise for Mike McCormack and Solar Bones: McCormack has always been among the most adventurous and ambitious Irish writers -- COLM TOIBIN Pure enchantment from an otherworldly talent, I admired the hell out of this book -- ELEANOR CATTON Wonderfully original, distinctively contemporary . . . delivered in lucid, lyrical prose * * New York Times * *