A man, Nealon, returns home to find his house empty; not just empty but seemingly abandoned. No heating. No lights. No inhabitants. The only welcome (as such) is from an unknown man on the telephone. A man who seems to know all about Nealon, and certainly more than the reader does..

As days pass more of Nealon's life is revealed - his childhood in rural Ireland, his career as an artist, his relationship with his wife and son, and, crucially, where he's been for the past few months - but he himself remains an enigma. He may, or may not, have been behind an enormous insurance fraud. He may be the person behind an ongoing security alert ... but, then again, he may not



This is definitely a difficult book to describe, but for its length (under 200 pages) it gives the reader a lot to think about. It's a strange book, enigmatic like its protagonist, which raises more questions about characters and events than get answered. (I once read that a lack of resolution was the mark of a literary novel - in which case this must be the most literary of them all). For me, it's a book that I'd go back to and mull over; I feel like there are hints and details along the way that didn't register with me on a first read-through but which would help clarify the ending.

I haven't read anything previously by Mike McCormack but knew he'd been long-listed for the Booker, so was intrigued when I saw this come up on Netgalley. I'm not certain if this is typical of McCormack's style but to me it seemed reminiscent of Samuel Beckett's work, with that feeling of a character creating the world around him as he names things and people.

When Nealon returns to his home in rural Ireland after a prolonged absence, he finds it empty, his family gone and him left behind. But then a phone call lets him know that not all the world has forgotten him; one stranger, who seems to know a lot about him, wants to meet. And so Nealon sets off on a journey, leaving him space to reflect on his past, offering us glimpses of moments and sensations that came before. This Plague of Souls is a book that is at once slow moving and yet still gripping, creating at times a dreamlike quality to the motions. Shrouded in enigma, the tension builds as the pieces of the puzzle are slowly revealed. Our unnamed stranger often speaks as if in riddles, adding to the hazy suspense. When they finally meet, something big is happening but we are never fully sure what, and we as readers also become spectators to the scenes unfolding on a screen before them. This is a book that is all psychological tension and atmosphere with minimal action, intricately crafted theories that form a climactic part of the plot line, and ultimately more questions than answers, which make it a quietly intense and compulsive read. I really enjoyed McCormack’s writing style and have Solar Bones lined up as one of my next reads.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC

Sadly this book largely went over my head. I couldn’t see the point of it – if indeed there was one. Or was it all just a tease? Many reviewers have obviously been impressed by it and have praised it effusively, but even after reading these reviews I was really none the wiser. To be honest, I couldn’t find any meaning in it unless it is the rather banal one of “oh what a sorry world we live in and what can we do about it?” The story is straightforward enough, and I enjoyed the first part of the book. Nealon returns home to his house in the west of Ireland after being in prison (for an unspecified crime) and finds his wife and son have disappeared. He starts to get a series of phone calls from a seemingly unknown man who apparently knows all about him, and after an initially resisting Nealon agrees to meet him to talk. Their conversation forms the last third of the book and I couldn’t really make head or tail of it. A “metaphysical thriller”, “existential noir” – maybe. It all takes place against a background of some unexplained security threat, possibly a terrorist one, but that is left unclear too. All in all, an unsatisfactory read, though I’m willing to accept that it is my understanding that is at fault rather than the book itself.

I was unsure as to where the storyline was going throughout expecting the plot to become clearer as I progressed through the book. I really thought it would become clear at the end. After reading the last sentence I was no wiser as to what the book was about than when I first started. Not a book for me I’am afraid.

Exceptional good read from Mike mcCormack (only to be expected).

Nealon returns, after a lengthy period in prison to the remote West of Ireland farmhouse where he grew up with his father (his mother died at the time of his birth) and where he later lived with his wife of three years Olwyn and young child Cuan. As he arrives he receives calls from an unknown person who seems to know a lot about him,

As the story progresses i became enthralled with the dark world.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Canongate and Mike McCormack for my ARC in return for an honest review.

This felt like a book of two half’s. I was engaged by the first third and what it was appearing to suggest but the second half was just dire and was mostly just one long conversation between 2 people in a hotel lobby. Not what I was expecting at all and was left disappointed thank you to NetGalley Uk and Canongate Uk for this ARC in return for an honest review

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and Mike McCormack for the ARC of This Plague of Souls. It opens with the protagonist, Nealon, returning home to an empty house. He has been on remand for an unspecified period, and expected his wife and child to be there. Instead of their company, he starts to receive calls from a mysterious man who won't reveal his name, who appears to know exactly what Nealon is doing at any time, and who sometimes seems to be threatening him. The man wants to meet Nealon and to discuss what he refers to as Nealon's work. Nealon is reluctant at first but eventually agrees. On the day of the meeting, there appears to be some unspecified security threat that leads to ports and airports closing, part of a hospital being sealed off, and motorway checkpoints every ten miles. The novel culminates with the meeting and ends on a cliffhanger that reminded me of the ending of the Christopher Nolan film, Interception.

As you can probably tell from that synopsis, This Plague of Souls contains numerous mysteries, many of which are unresolved by the end of the book. It seems to be playing with the tension between giving a complete picture of one man's life, and the unknowability of another person. For instance, the narrative follows Nealon through his house and describes the rooms to the extent that you could probably draw an architectural plan of it. The house is kept well maintained and fully stocked with food, including fresh eggs. In the absence of his wife and child, who has been seeing to the upkeep of the house – and who knew that he would be returning and brought eggs to the home? It's a little question, and this novel is full of them.

I read this book twice and on my initial reading, and as I like stories that are fairly conclusive, I was a bit disappointed. Having read it a second time, I appreciated all the lacunae in the story and the questions that it creates. At one stage, the narrator describes the "dangerous uncertainty" that lingers in a part-told story. I feel like this story is permeated with that quality, and I can't stop thinking about it as a result. The tension is sustained throughout – the first time in particular, I read quickly as I wanted to know what would happen – and it's less stylistically challenging than Solar Bones. I think this would make a good introduction to McCormack's work, so if you're curious about his writing, now is your chance.

'This Plague of Souls' is a unsettling novel which begins like a thriller but turns into something much stranger. The novel begins with Nealon returning to somewhere which is clearly his home but which is completely empty and oddly unfamiliar to him. Within the first couple of pages, he has received a mysterious phone call from an unknown caller who seems to know a lot about him and who continues to call Nealon throughout the novel.

It gradually emerges that Nealon has just returned from prison having spent several years on remand for a crime before his trial collapsed. We piece together the details of his life - the death of his mother, growing up with his father on the family farm, his marriage to Olwyn and his young son. At the same time, we are given various hints of peculiar stirrings in other apparently unconnected lives around the country.

In the second section of this novel, Nealon travels to meet his mystery caller in a hotel at the same time as details of a nationwide shutdown are revealed; in the third and final section we learn more both about the reasons for this shutdown and the details of Nealon's alleged crime, but the truth remains elusive.

I absolutely loved Mike McCormack's previous novel 'Solar Bones' - a highly experimental and poetic work of fiction written in a single sentence stream of consciousness. Formally speaking, this is slightly more conventional novel but shares some of the same concerns, including the idea of a revenant of sorts returning to their former life. I didn't find this novel quite as spellbinding as 'Solar Bones' but was nonetheless intrigued by it and I think it would reward multiple readings to unpick some of the beguiling layers of strangeness in McCormack's writing. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

I have to admit this was not my type of book at all.
I am sure some people may like it but it was on all together another level for me.
Nialon has been released from remand prison to find his wife and son gone.
He receives a phone call from a stranger wanting to meet to discuss his crimes. Nialon doesn't want to admit anything.
Found it slow moving and vague about the direction the book was taking and the true story line but maybe that is the point. The story is centered around whether it is morally defensible to fraudulently take other people's money and use it for the good of others. Who has the right to decide who should be helped and who shouldn't.
I was glad to get to the end as I don't like to start a book without finishing it. Probably one the literary critics would enjoy.

Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones was a fantastic achievement - and now we find out that his tale of a local authority buildings engineer has a sequel. Not literally, but in This Plague of Souls we return to the Irish landscape and the musings of a middle-aged man alone in a room. This central part of a promised triptych has a man we eventually find out is named Nealon returning to his house after a long period in prison on remand. His wife and son are not there, instead there’s a caller on the landline who seems to know everything about him and is keen to meet up. Like Marcus in Solar Bones, the novel follows the thoughts, memories and dreams of the protagonist, through which we understand everything that’s happened to him - from watching the rain in a cowshed with his father to his career as a con artist - to bring him to this moment. McCormack’s control of language is so masterly that though everything in the first two-thirds of the book is recalled, all of it drives the story forwards.

It’s difficult to discuss the final third of the book without some sense of spoiler. McCormack brings his deep throat from the phone and Nealon finally together, and their conversation forms the last section. Having spent so much time in Nealon’s head, the hotel room chat can’t help but feel a little two-dimensional. And there is an enigmatic eruption of an episode of disaster management that feels straight out of another novel, like Don Delillo’s White Noise or Douglas Coupland’s Player One. An intrusion that feels like a slight false note, a sign that McCormack’s stream of consciousness weaves such a subtle spell that stepping out of Nealon’s head to enter the real-time real world can’t help but be a slight let down. If it doesn’t quite have the extra-ordinary control and bewitching drift of Solar Bones, This Plague of Souls offers a rich return to McCormack’s unique style. Can’t wait for the concluding panel.

Mixed feelings on this one! McCormack sets up an engaging, mysterious story that unravels slowly. The strange, anonymous phone calls and missing family develop into a full-blown conspiracy; when it comes to Nealon finally coming face-to-face with the anonymous caller, I was ultimately left with the sense that something had just flown right over my head. McCormack is clearly a talented writer and I mostly enjoyed my time reading it, but I didn’t totally understand what I was supposed to get from it and it hasn’t really stuck with me since I finished reading it.

Nealon has been in prison, accused of a crime he says he didn’t commit. Finally released after a long time, he returns to his family home in Ireland. He is greeted by an empty house. No sign of his wife and child, the house is empty, the heat long off, the house cold and unwelcome. However, as soon as he steps in the door and is groping for a light switch, the phone rings. The caller seems to know who Nealon is, and seemingly knows everything about his life and circumstances.

The mysterious caller claims to know where Nealon’s wife is, and says he wants to meet to talk. He will then tell Nealon what he wants to know, primarily where his wife and child are. Nealon refuses to engage with him at first, this mysterious, nameless person. But the more Nealon wanders around his lonely house, and the surrounding remote, grim farmland, the calls continue, and Nealon finds himself tempted to agree to meet.

Set against the background of some unknown and emerging security incident, Nealon makes the trip to meet the mystery man, to hopefully get some answers. As readers we think we are finally going to get some resolution. Alas, we simply get more questions. This story is beautifully written. There is a dark and pensive atmosphere built up through the descriptive and evocative writing, with Nealon’s brooding adding to the tension. McCormack writes very well, and keeps you engaged in the story through his excellent writing. However, there is not much more in the story than the atmosphere. We don’t get much back story. Teasing glimpses which just leave us with more questions. We don’t get any answers, only more questions. The unfolding drama that is happening alongside Nealon’s story - is it connected, is it unrelated, what is it?

This book was pitched as a metaphysical thriller, not a description I had heard before. It is a short read, but it left me befuddled, puzzled as to why I had read it. Was there a point to it? What was the end to have meant? Did I just not get it? If you like your mysteries very mysterious then it is a well written but very obfuscated read. If you like some level of resolution at the end, this one might not be for you!

*I received this book from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

“Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller”, This Plague of Souls was a bit much for me intellectually, and therefore didn’t work for me. I never really connected with it on any level.

"Nealon has always seen her as someone from the end of days, some pale functionary with a specific role to play in whatever way the darkness will come down. Among his visions of her is one where she is taking the sacrificial lead on some sort of cosmic altarpiece."

This Plague of Souls is the "dark centrepiece in portrait", as the author has described it, of a meditative alterpiece of three novels, with the multi-prize featured Solar Bones as the first landscape side panel.

The novel's protagonist Nealon has returned to his Mayo family farmhouse having been on remand for a lengthy period (the longest in the Irish Republic's history we are told), accused of a complex financial fraud but one which the authorities are unable to prove, the trial collapsing almost immediately it starts.

The story is told from his close third-person perspective, including an insight to his thoughts and reactions, but crucially his true nature and story remain closed to the reader, and at times it feels to himself.

And if the circumstances of his being here alone in this bed at this hour rest within the arc of those grand constructs that turn in the night–politics, finance, trade–it is not clear how his loneliness resolves in the indifference with which such constructs regard him across the length and breadth of his sleep.

Expecting to find his wife and child at the family home, although aware they've become estranged during his incarceration, he finds the house empty (and oddly unfamiliar - the opening scenes read like someone exploring a strange house) and instead of messages from his wife, the only phone calls he gets is from an unknown man who seems to know Nealon's every move and who is very keen to talk to him:

‘My name is neither here nor there–it won’t make you one bit wiser knowing it. All it will do is add more to your own cluelessness. I’ll put it this way, it’s not a question of who I am but what I know; the breadth and depth of what I can tell you, that’s the important thing here.’ There follows another silence before he resumes. ‘Let’s assume that each of us knows certain things, me and you. Not everything we know is the same, but there are similarities. And sometimes, while we may be talking of the same things, we might have very different telling of them. So, in order to make sure, we need to compare our stories and arrive at a single version we can both agree on. Now, you can make of that what you will, but I have made this call in good faith and all I want is for us to have a meeting.’

This Plague of Souls is both commendably compact and yet manages to pack in an impressive number of plot points and themes - who is this mysterious person and how does he seem to know what Nealon is doing at any point in time? what exactly was Nealon accused of and what does the stranger want to discuss? where is Nealon's family? why did he 'kidnap' the woman who was to become his wife from a Dublin squat? what's the nature of the event (terrorism? cyber-attack?) that brings on a sudden State of Emergency? how is it all connected to various conspiracy theories and true political scandals?

The novel might best be described as metaphysical noir, and McCormack has cited the inspiration of authors such as Simenon and Pascal Garnier, but this isn't a novel for someone hoping all, or even any, of those question will be neatly resolved. Which I appreciate (the one Garnier I've read seemed to head too inevitably to an explanation of sorts) but will leave some readers unsatisfied. As McCormack has said of his mission here:

"Would it be possible to write a book of which it would be impossible to speak, where I don’t know what happens, and how to make that artistically credible and skilful without it coming across as clueless, as an authorial failure?"

Indeed for me the clearest explanation of Nealon's life which we do get, in a exposition by the man behind the calls when the two finally meet, was one of the novel's rare clunky misfires. Although we do learn from that that Nealon was originally a highly talented artist on the Galway scene, his graduate exhibition a series of portraits of the 1981 Hunger Strikers in the style of Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977 series on the Baader Meinhof Gang - one of the many Macguffins which litter the plot, so much so that perhaps the literary equivalent should be called the McCormacks.

Nealon's emergence from a period of incarceration into a new world is a metaphor for the post-pandemic world and McCormack's own concerns on whether the new world will value artists over financiers. As a career investment banker and actuarial 'miracle worker' I suspect my and the author's takes on this would differ indeed even our conclusions from the novel, although it's a sign of a good novel that the reader can reach a different view to the author (indeed if Nealon is behind what his interlocutor claims he is, the novel is wonderfully unambiguous about whether it makes him a hero or a villain):

In Nealon’s peripheral vision a clutch of businessmen and women have drifted in from an adjoining space and are having some sort of stand-up meeting in the middle of the floor. In their suits and shirts, they have about them the sheen of miracle workers, men and women who juggle values and probability, the kind of work that puts them within a hair’s breadth of divinity.

In a neat touch the novel ends with Nealon hearing the angelus bell tolling over the city, as Solar Bones began with Marcus hearing it and I very much look forward to the final panel of the trilogy.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC

Set in Ireland, central character Nealon, returns home after being released from prison to find his wife and son missing. As he waits, he settles back into his familiar surroundings, his thoughts taking him back to past times with his wife Olwyn and son Cuan. But his reminiscences are constantly interrupted by a mysterious caller who wants to meet him. Someone who knows a lot about him and the whereabouts of his family.

The novel is wonderfully descriptive, well written and full of atmosphere. Although it is not my usual choice of book, I enjoyed the opportunity to read something completely different.

My thanks to Canongate, the Author and Netgalley for an ARC of The Plague of Souls in exchange for an honest review.

I was sent a copy of This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack to read and review by NetGalley. This is a curious but well written novel with some beautiful prose here and there. I can’t say that I understood all of it and wasn’t quite sure where the story was going much of the time – the last half of the book seemed to be a bit of a lesson in philosophy and modern history. It is my first foray into the author’s writing so I do not know if this novel is indicative of his style – I am undecided as to whether to read more of his works in the future or not!

I read this in an evening. It is short. I liked the lyricism of the language, though found the self absorption of the narrator tough going. The plot is there in broad lines, with some whys and wherefores, but I am now scratching my head wondering what the book was all about . In some ways I understand the missing wife and son, in others I am curious about other viewpoints and what led to the state of affairs. Good descriptions which allow the reader to experience the location. Glad it was not longer though, no doubt more meaning will come out as I think about this book in the coming days.
Thanks to Net galley for the ARC

This was a strange one, synopsis had me intrigued, and I did enjoy the book for the most part.
Nealon returns to his family cottage after a spell in jail on remand. His wife and son have gone. A man calls him several times and wants to meet. He eventually agrees. The man seems to know a lot about nealon and says he knows the location of his wife and child. He does not disclose this to Nealon but tells him a story of his life, how he got to where he is, lots of riddles.
I did enjoy it, but am I bit confused by the end, did nealon do it or not?
Thank you netgally for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Recently released from a long spell in prison, on remand for an unspecified crime, Nealon returns to his childhood home to discover his wife and child no longer there, and having left no clue as to their whereabouts. He drifts through days punctuated by gnomic phone calls from someone who suggests he and Nealon should meet, they have things to discuss. Nealon initially resists but eventually capitulates,driving through the dark to a rendezvous in a city hotel. What follows is an enigmatic dialogue, possible reasons for Nealon's stay in jail, unanswered questions and unconfirmed suggestions. All Nealon's thoughts are on his wife and child, his interlocutor is far more interested in getting Nealon to admit to a version of the truth.
This is a deeply enigmatic exploration of family ties, belonging and a search for meaning in Life. I was as bewildered at the conclusion as I was at the start, but knew I was reading something powerful and profound. Beautifully written, dream-like and troubling. Recommended.

The first half of this book intrigued me. I loved the viewpoint of the character. Reminded me of John Boynes Water where the character explores the demons of the past and what they do now with their future.
Whilst not necessarily the most lovable of characters, I did want to learn more about Nealon. I was interested in knowing the details of his case, but somehow we got titbits and not the full story.

The second half of the book introduced a second character, and to what purpose I do not know, perhaps to tell Nealon’s story? But it was done in such a way that I didn’t know if we were to believe the story or not. Was Nealon really such a mastermind?
Overall, like the character’s viewpoint, but would’ve liked a different story and a bit more clarity so I could understand what was going on.

The blurb classifies it as a metaphysical thriller, a genre for me to avoid going forward. So if that’s your thing, you’ll probably enjoy it.