Richly imaginative and deeply humorous, this collection showcases the author's original voice through a series of compelling narratives. The new Afterword offers insights into the author's reflections on his early work, adding depth to the reading experience. The blend of wit and power in the storytelling invites readers to engage with thought-provoking themes.
In his second collection of short stories, Mike McCormack joins head and heart in a series of tales which weave a fluid vision of a world morphing between the real and the hyperreal.
WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2016BGE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016Marcus Conway has come a long way to stand in the kitchen of his home and remember the rhythms and routines of his life. Considering with his engineer's mind how things are constructed - bridges, banking systems, marriages - and how they may come apart. Mike McCormack captures with tenderness and feeling, in continuous, flowing prose, a whole life, suspended in a single hour.
Rescued from the squalor of a Rumanian orphanage, and adopted by the rural community of west Mayo, the child that is named J.J. O'Malley should have grown up happy. The boy has no gift for it, though, and his new life has a brutal way of giving him plenty to be unhappy about. After a sudden tragedy, J.J. suffers a catastrophic mental breakdown. Unable to live with himself, he volunteers for a project exporing the possibility of using deep coma as a future option within the penal system. When his coma goes online the nation turns to watch, and J.J. is quickly elevated to the status of cultural icon. Five narrators his father, neighbour, teacher, public representative, and sweetheart tell us the true story of his life and try to give some clue as to why he is the way he is now: floating in a maintained coma on a prison ship off the west coast of Ireland.
How do you rebuild the world? How do you put it back together? Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland for the first time in years, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. No heat or light, no furniture, 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.