LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Mike McCormack’s This Plague of Souls casts a powerful spell. Raw, reflective and unexpected, it’s a stylish, noir-ish thriller that ripples with the dislocation, loss and memories of its philosophical protagonist — a man who’s alone in the world, but for the stranger at the end of a phone.
The novel’s opening segment, Country Feedback, is set in West Ireland, where we meet Nealon, a man who’s recently returned to his family home after a long period of incarceration. The house is empty, he has no idea where his wife and son have gone, and his only human connection is with a stranger on the end of a phone. A man who keeps calling him, speaking in half-riddles as he persists in suggesting they should meet. Nealon is reflective and feels dislocated as he ponders his past, and his present in-limbo situation.
In the second section, No Traffic and a Dry Road, we accompany Nealon as he drives to meet the stranger in Dublin. The journey sees him reflect further on the family life he once had, and on fatherhood, such as the way his son “had reached inside Nealon and pulled something from him that was new and lasting, some thread of connectedness with this world.”
Then comes a radio announcement about a maximum-security alert, which leads Nealon to wonder “how the country will acquit itself. Where will it look to for guidance and precedent? What will be the communal response?” After hearing “unconfirmed news a hospital has been requisitioned as a quarantine unit”, he checks into a hotel, which heralds the final segment of the novel.
This Plague of Souls sees Nealon meet the man who’s been calling him. “Why are we here, what do you want from me?” he asks. Little by little, the man reveals he knows every detail of Nealon’s life — everything about his upbringing, his travels, his work, and his arrest for identity theft. He also claims to know where Nealon’s wife and son are. His reasons for making contact are entirely surprising. So, too, are the revelations about Nealon’s past. As a result, and as a result of the pithy, perfectly-paced lyrical build-up, This Plague of Souls is a slippery, slickly haunting read.
Joanne Owen
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This Plague of Souls Synopsis
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.
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Press Reviews
Mike McCormack Press Reviews
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 TÓIBÍN
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 TÓIBÍN
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
Author
About Mike McCormack
Mike McCormack is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Mayo. His previous work includes Getting it in the Head (1995), Crowe’s Requiem (1998), Notes from a Coma (2005), which was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award, and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. He lives in Galway.
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