Notes from a Coma

(Paperback, Main - Canons Imprint)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

After suffering a catastrophic breakdown, J.J. O'Malley volunteers for an improbable government project which has been set up to explore the possibility of using deep coma as a future option within the EU penal system. Brilliantly imagined and artfully constructed, the novel merges science fiction with an affectionate portrait of small town Ireland.

Notes from a Coma is both the story of a man cursed with guilt and genius and a compassionate examination of how personal identities are safeguarded and held in trust by loved ones.

Reviews

The first great 21st-century Irish novel * * Irish Times * *
Adventurous and ambitious -- Colm Tibn
McCormack's language is lovely, lyrical . . . his humor is dark, macabre; the words glimmer like a spell * * Time Out * *
McCormack's obsessions at times converge with those explored by Ian McEwan, Will Self and J. G. Ballard, but his clever ideas and fluid, gracefully morbid style are all his own * * GQ * *
When venturing into the realm of the macabre, a writer gains a distinct advantage if he has a sense of discipline and a sense of humor . . . Mike McCormack has both to spare . . . Like parables in their easy transcendence of setting and time, the most audacious stories are classics * * The New York Times Book Review * *
A cross between 1984 and The X-Files . . . Notes From a Coma establishes McCormack as one of the most original and important voices in contemporary Irish fiction * * Irish Times * *

Author Bio

Mike McCormack is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Mayo. His previous work includes Getting it in the Head (1995) and Forensic Songs (2012). In 1996 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and in 2007 he was awarded a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship. In 2016, Solar Bones won the Goldsmiths Prize and the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year.