Description

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

Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland after a long time away, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. With 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 becomes tangled in the very crimes of which he claims to be innocent.

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 The Irish master of tension returns . . . This Plague of Souls, a late entry for the most interesting novel of the year, is more straightforwardly expressed, but remains a fully fledged tale of the unexpected — JOHN SELF * * The Times * * Terror, crime and sinister phone-calls – a magnificent Irish novel. For the most part, it reads like a thriller, shot through with a pervading atmosphere of precarity and uncertainty . . . a beautifully written collision of mystery and metaphysics * * Telegraph * * McCormack’s language is evocative, perfectly suited to the noirish atmosphere he builds throughout the book . . . McCormack displays his gift for describing landscapes and situations that might seem unlovely, but for the fact that they are loved by the author’s observing eye * * Guardian * * The most involving new novel I read this year was This Plague of Souls . . . [McCormack] has an uncanny gift for presenting a vivid realist depiction of the contemporary west of Ireland but layering it through with unexpected genre notes- there are elements of noir, dystopia, existential mystery. Built on lines of perfectly cadenced dialogue, the book is easily on apar with its feted predecessor, Solar Bones — KEVIN BARRY * * New Statesman, Books of the Year * * Drawing these threads of heartbreak, surreal menace and the possible imminent collapse of the world together, McCormack weaves a web that holds the reader in suspense to the end – and beyond * * Spectator * * Stark, intense, fiercely controlled . . . Mike McCormack at his best — PAT McCABE McCormack’s prose is quite simply the best around, his sentences a joy, clear and precise . . . a finely wrought narrative * * Irish Examiner * * 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