Fionnáin reviewed This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
Falling apart around us
3 stars
I love Mike McCormack's prose and imagination. This Plague of Souls is of his more sinister canon, trailing out a mystery of a protagonist who has arrived home from prison to an empty house, void of his wife and child, and where he receives continuous phone-calls from an unnamed caller who seems obsessed with how he got out of a prison sentence. In the final section, this mystery unspools into another, broader mystery.
While some of the imaginative ideas are rich, such as the backstory of the protagonist and his wife's first living together in rural Ireland, the book failed to form any sense of intrigue. It felt a little like a short story that had been stretched out like an elastic band, that lacked any more content to become whole as a novel. The prose is good throughout, and the book has merit in its involved portrayal of a …
I love Mike McCormack's prose and imagination. This Plague of Souls is of his more sinister canon, trailing out a mystery of a protagonist who has arrived home from prison to an empty house, void of his wife and child, and where he receives continuous phone-calls from an unnamed caller who seems obsessed with how he got out of a prison sentence. In the final section, this mystery unspools into another, broader mystery.
While some of the imaginative ideas are rich, such as the backstory of the protagonist and his wife's first living together in rural Ireland, the book failed to form any sense of intrigue. It felt a little like a short story that had been stretched out like an elastic band, that lacked any more content to become whole as a novel. The prose is good throughout, and the book has merit in its involved portrayal of a character who is a chameleon. Enjoyable, not unmissable.