A pensive and poignant short novel focusing on Nealon as he is released from prison to an empty home on the west coast of Ireland. There is a sombre and reflective atmosphere as Nealon comes to terms with the absence of his wife and child. Sinister calls from an unknown person invade his reflections on his life until we find him travelling in the second part of the book to Dublin to meet this mystery caller. The journey there reveals more details on his marriage and his relationship with his son. It is rather haunting the way his life is laid to bare , but beautiful. In the final part, Nealon meets with the mystery caller, who fills in the blanks of Nealon's story from his perspective as a policeman. He reveals a marvellous con with a humanitarian and almost artistic slant. Their conversation is interspersed with breaking news of international mayhem and imminent security threats with news reporters waiting to be updates alongside the country on future actions. There is a resigned nature to the proceedings, alongside tension, anxiety, and fear. There is a doggedness to Nealon, and despite his sombre and reflective mood, there is a dark humour to the conversation. While Nealon resigns himself to a solitary fate, and questions remain over the future, there is a beauty in the recognition rather than a sense of doom. Wonderful writing. #thisplagueofsouls #mikemccormack #netgalley #tramppress #irishwriter

What have I just read?

Nealon returns from prison, exonerated of his crimes, only to find a totally empty house - no wife, no child, no nothing. The only thing that is new is the voice on the phone who somehow seems to know everything that Nealon is doing. At the voices urging, Nealon leaves the house and travels to a hotel to meet up with the mysterious caller. Meanwhile, the country is in a state of national emergency for reasons that are not clear. Roads are closed with checkpoints, hospitals have cleared wards and people are being asked to stay in place as we wait for the official announcement of what is going on.

I did not enjoy this book at all. I was confused and spent most of my time re-reading passage after to passage to try and figure out what was going on. I couldn't understand where Nealon's family were, I couldn't figure out why he was randomly following the instructions of the caller on the phone and then when he finally met the person I just became more confused as there didn't appear to be any reason for it. It put my in mind of James Joyce's 'Dubliners' as I hadn't got a clue what was happening in that either.

Some will rave about this being an incredible novel of nuance and complexity....I was just baffled.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for the honest review.

This is the sort of book that I know I am supposed to see something rare and beautiful in. The narrative is told through the single voice of Nealon (who i wanted to call Nelson all the way through the book). Released from jail when he is acquitted of all charges, he arrives home to find his wife and child gone. He is plagued by calls from a man whose identity we never really learn.

For me there was no connective tissue in the book, no sense of what the author was trying to convey. It was a simple stream of consciousness without anything to hang onto.

Many people will rave about the book I need study notes to tell me what I am looking at.

This Plague of Souls is a tense and atmospheric book but after reading the first half it lost me. I didn't finish, it was slow and hard to peice together.

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.

Another excellent piece of work. While not quite up to Solar Bones (a personal favourite), this is further proof of McCormack's status as top-tier novelist.

An intriguing and fascinating novel that left me wondering.I loved the style of writing and couldn't stop reading trying to find an answer that I didn't find.
Great storytellign and style of writing.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, who gave me this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
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“‘Some people have to be saved from themselves.’
‘Is that how you see things? The whole world needing to be rescued?’
‘Not everything, but some things are so far gone, someone has to step up.’
And the expression on her face was so knowing that sometimes, in the white set of her rage, Nealon would see there was a part of her that had never forgiven him.”

Set mainly in rural Mayo, This Plague of Souls introduces readers to Nealon, a man returning home after being released from prison. His house is cold and empty, his partner and son are gone, and he keeps receiving phone calls from a stranger who insists he has all the answers Nealon is hunting for, if he was only brave enough to meet him.

This is the first of McCormack’s books that I have read, though I do own Solar Bones, which I may have to read soon as the author has stated the two are part of a trilogy. I have also read sections of his writing before. I still wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading. For the short length of it, the amount of ground covered is impressive.

I enjoyed the first part of the novel. I have heard from others that one of McCormack’s strengths in his work is his depiction of rural Ireland, and as someone who lives in rural Ireland, I can back that up after reading this. His descriptions of the landscapes Nealon sees and the local people he meets feel like it could have been taken from my personal experience. This also applies to the description of Galway City later. I also enjoyed Nealon’s musings on his relationships with his partner, Olwyn and his son, it provided a nice insight into his character and his way of dealing with situations. He felt fully realised as the type of Irish man that I am familiar with: emotionally repressed but usually meaning well, someone continually pulled between the past and the present.

The last section was what let the whole thing down for me. I can enjoy a little ambiguity in my reading, especially in fiction, but there were too many questions at the end of the novel for my liking. What bothered me is that there was a lot of build-up to the moment the stranger would reveal everything, and all he did was accuse Nealon of various crimes with little to no reaction from Nealon. I could almost believe that he was the criminal mastermind behind the crimes he was being accused of, especially based on his interactions with Olwyn, but I didn’t find him quite believable as an unreliable narrator. It just felt a bit anticlimactic.

I feel like we got two different books with this novel, and I vastly preferred the first half. I would have loved to have had a novel that simply explored Nealon’s feelings on his past and what he lost by going to prison, as that is what intrigued me most. I think that I might not have been the intended audience for this book.

This is a novel about Nealon, who returns home after a long absence to find the house completely empty. Where he has been is unclear, although I assumed he had been in prison. After a series of unwanted telephone calls Nealon is goaded into meeting the caller and an unsatisfactory meeting ensues.
The book is very atmospheric and the writing style makes it an easy read, but for me the story doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Maybe I’m missing something, but as a result I can’t say I enjoyed the book.

The story unfolds as a captivating and enigmatic journey of self-discovery, grappling with the complexities of the past, present, and future. The narrator, portrayed as allusive and mysteriously layered, presents a character who is simultaneously lonely, dangerous, and damaged. The novel's structure, divided into three narrative blocks, gradually reveals the context and layers of the protagonist's story. The writing is described as entrancing and beautiful, skillfully maintaining an atmosphere of unreality throughout the narrative.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Nealon has just been released from months in prison after the trial against him collapsed. He returns to an empty house, no sign of his wife and young son. Then he gets a phone call from a man who doesn’t give a name. While I liked the tense, mysterious atmosphere and found it hard to put down, it’s ultimately a frustrating experience. So many things are never revealed and the little bits and pieces that are are never confirmed as true. What is really going on here? I’m not sure.

A slow paced novel, interesting and at time not sure where it's going, good characterization. The writing style was good and would look for other novels by this author. I received this book from Canongate and Netgalley for a review.

Nealon comes home, after a spell in prison, to an empty house, his wife and child gone. Then he starts to get phone calls from a stranger who seems to know all about him, and who wants a meeting. It’s a striking, well written book that I’ve no doubt is going to stick in my mind in terms of some images and phrases, but it was so mysterious that even at the end I wasn’t sure what was happening. I spent most of the time confused, which meant it was hard to really care, or engage with Nealon as a character. In the last third you find out he is much more than you thought he was, but even after having light shed on more of his life and motivations, I still didn’t really understand all that was going on.

I enjoyed this a lot. It was unusual and blended the reality of being alone whilst at the same time giving a sense of unease that others know something about you and are controlling your actions.

Apparently this is not only a terse metaphysical triller and the most anticipated book of the year by the Guardian, The Irish Times and The New Statesman.

Unfortunately it didn’t work for me. It was one of those book that did not engage me, left me cold and, once I had finished it, I didn’t really know what it was all about.at least it’s was short.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

This may be a short book but it is not a quick read. The writing alone deserves the reader’s very best attention. Sentence construct is clever and the general writing wonderfully descriptive. For the first half of the book it was heading for a full 5 stars. Nealon returns to his home in the West of Ireland from prison, with the rather dubious fame as the longest remand prisoner on record. However his home is empty, no heat, no light and most importantly no wife or son only a persistent caller that appears to almost be watching him.
Unfortunately after that it just lost me. I have no idea what the rest of this was about and there was just too much left unanswered at the end.
A disappointing follow up to the wonderful Solar Bones.

Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and the publishers for this ARC

This Plague of Souls is an unusual novel about a man called Nealon who returns to his family home and discovers his wife and child are not there. He continually receives phone calls from a stranger wanting to meet up with him, but won’t give his name.
Despite being a short book, it is slow paced with a lot of time reflecting on past events meaning the story doesn’t move on significantly. Hard to judge who might enjoy this novel.

I enjoyed the writing at times in Plague of Souls, it flowed well, but ultimately I just didn't connect with the characters, the plot or the storyline. So it felt like a chore to finish it (which I did). The mystery element in the storyline, and relationship drama were both drawn out, and I felt this slowed the plot down.

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