All That is Solid Melts into Air
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- CHF 9.00
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- CHF 9.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
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
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.