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A review by sharonleavy
This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
Nealon returns to his dark, cold, empty house after spending some time in prison. His crime? We don't know. His family? Nowhere to be seen. Nealon thinks he's all alone - but soon realises, by way of several anonymous phone calls, that someone is watching him...
I find this one hard to review. The writing is great, the atmosphere is perfect, and the first part of the book, while I didn't appreciate the drip-feeding of information, worked well to build tension as we found out more about Nealon.
Therein lay the problem for me - I'm still not sure I know anything about Nealon. Flashback scenes were unclear, his history revealed by someone I don't know if we should believe or not, and the additional large-scale background events lent an eeriness that I felt took away from Nealon's story (or non-story), rather than added to it.
I appreciate that this author has an experimental style - I absolutely adored "Solar Bones", and there are some absolutely gorgeous phrases in here ("A couple of minutes adrift in himself would make all the difference")- I just wasn't quite sure what was going on overall and how the two narratives fit together. I felt like I read two halves of two different books. It was like being given a bite of a delicious cake and then having the rest taken away from you. I Just wanted to finish the cake?!
Sincere thanks to Canongate for the ARC via Netgalley, I had also pre-ordered a hardback copy from Kennys based on my love of the authors debut. A disappointing one for me, unfortunately, but I will still look forward to reading whatever this author puts out next.
Nealon returns to his dark, cold, empty house after spending some time in prison. His crime? We don't know. His family? Nowhere to be seen. Nealon thinks he's all alone - but soon realises, by way of several anonymous phone calls, that someone is watching him...
I find this one hard to review. The writing is great, the atmosphere is perfect, and the first part of the book, while I didn't appreciate the drip-feeding of information, worked well to build tension as we found out more about Nealon.
Therein lay the problem for me - I'm still not sure I know anything about Nealon. Flashback scenes were unclear, his history revealed by someone I don't know if we should believe or not, and the additional large-scale background events lent an eeriness that I felt took away from Nealon's story (or non-story), rather than added to it.
I appreciate that this author has an experimental style - I absolutely adored "Solar Bones", and there are some absolutely gorgeous phrases in here ("A couple of minutes adrift in himself would make all the difference")- I just wasn't quite sure what was going on overall and how the two narratives fit together. I felt like I read two halves of two different books. It was like being given a bite of a delicious cake and then having the rest taken away from you. I Just wanted to finish the cake?!
Sincere thanks to Canongate for the ARC via Netgalley, I had also pre-ordered a hardback copy from Kennys based on my love of the authors debut. A disappointing one for me, unfortunately, but I will still look forward to reading whatever this author puts out next.