Mike McCormack's new novel Solar Bones is longlisted for the 2017
Man Booker Prize.
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.
Amid much hollow laughter a prisoner is drawn from his cell in the
middle of the night to play a video game; two rural guards ponder the
security threat posed by the only man in Ireland not to have written his
memoirs; a child tries to offset his destiny as a serial killer by
petitioning his father for a beating; a late night American cop show
becomes a savage analysis of a faltering marriage in the west of
Ireland; two men turn up at the door of a slacker to give him news of
his death and recruit him to some mysterious surveillance mission; an
older brother worries about the health of his younger sibling; the
prodigal son returns to reveal the fear and hypocrisy which lies at the
heart of his brothers life.
In twelve stories McCormack's characters find themselves trying to hold
onto their identities in a world where love is too often and too easily
obscured.
