All That is Solid Melts into Air
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
All That is Solid Melts into Air is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory: Chernobyl.
'Daring, ambitious, epic, moving' Colm Tóibín
Coloured sheets of paper fall from the sky. This is their first indication that something serious has happened. Each sheet bears a message: you have three hours to evacuate, bring only one suitcase. From their balconies they can see a dark column of smoke rising above the nuclear plant. For the people of Pripyat, these are the last moments they will spend in their homes. For a child piano prodigy, a dissident factory worker, a broken-hearted surgeon and unknowing others, this disaster will change their lives forever . . .
'Shocking, vivid . . . sweeps with epic confidence across lives' Sunday Independent
'Astonishing . . . A page-turner' Irish Times
'A stunning debut' Guardian
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Following a diverse, interconnected cast of characters—including a bullied nine-year-old piano prodigy, a brilliant and lonely surgeon, an intellectually curious menial worker and a displaced Ukrainian family—this astonishing novel sheds light on the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Pulsing with humanism and authentic emotion, Darragh McKeon’s debut is a beautifully written tale about an ugly time in Soviet history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1986 Moscow, as first-time novelist McKeon presents it, few expect the Soviet government to change: strikes fail, newspapers are corrupt, and many men and woman can only find work in factories. Even Grigory, a successful surgeon, mourns his relentless routine: "The life that had silently formed around him seemed such a solid thing now." McKeon conveys the U.S.S.R.'s rigidity through the miseries of his characters: Grigory's wife Maria, a savvy journalist, loses her career, reputation, and marriage in one fell swoop when her anti-Soviet sympathies are discovered. But while hope for personal betterment is relentlessly checked, the horrific nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl proves that massive-scale change is possible. McKeon offers four clear fictional perspectives on Soviet history, and not once do the private affairs of his characters (Grigory and Maria's love for one another; the tension between a nine-year-old piano prodigy and his mother, who has too much riding on her son's success; a boy's efforts to grapple with his father's sudden death) bump up awkwardly against the historical account. Instead, McKeon's fiction serves up, without clich , what so many futuristic dystopian novels aspire to: a reminder that human beings can bring about their own demise.
