This Plague of Souls // Mike McCormack [english]

”This is the reason Mike McCormack is one of Ireland's best-loved novelists; he is the most modestly brilliant writer we have.”
Anne Enright

”A sombre tale shot through with glints of dark humour, in which the sins of the past at once haunt and illuminate the present.”
John Banville

A short, unsettling novel. Nealon comes home from prison to a house in the west of Ireland that is empty, his wife and child gone, and a stranger begins calling to say he knows where they are. They meet in a hotel lobby while a terrorist attack unfolds in the background.

Mike McCormack is an Irish writer who lives in Galway. His previous novel Solar Bones won the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016.

For readers who like spare prose, withheld information and a plot you assemble yourself. What readers come back for is the long conversation at the centre, where almost nothing is stated outright.

Hard to find in good condition, this book is no longer sold new in bookshops.

”This is a darkly marvelous novel: at once intimate, domestic, and poignant, then speculative and hard-boiled and wild.”
Lisa McInerney

”This Plague of Souls is beautifully written and highly compelling. It is a truly fascinating short metaphysical thriller with a timely feel of society in 2023.”
Georgina Reads_Eats_Explores, Goodreads