Notes from a Coma
Mike McCormack
ISBN: 9781616952327
Published: March, 2013
Pricing
Paperback $14.00
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Suggested Reading
Description
JJ O’ Malley, adopted from a Romanian orphanage by a single father in the west of Ireland, grows up a permanent outsider, and yet he finds his place in the community. At least until his world is shaken by the death of his best friend, and he volunteers for the “Somnos Project,” an experimental program testing deep coma as a potentia...
JJ O’ Malley, adopted from a Romanian orphanage by a single father in the west of Ireland, grows up a permanent outsider, and yet he finds his place in the community. At least until his world is shaken by the death of his best friend, and he volunteers for the “Somnos Project,” an experimental program testing deep coma as a potential option in the EU penal system.
In a prison ship docked in Killary Harbour, JJ is hooked up to monitoring devices that feed out to the Internet, and he and his fellow guinea pigs become global celebrities. A beautifully rendered look at small-town Irish life, and a far-reaching investigation of politics, neuroscience, global communications, and the ethics of incarceration, Notes from a Coma is a major work from one of the world’s bravest and most unusual novelists.
Media
“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
“The greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended.”
─Irish Times
“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.”