Rescued from the squalor of a Rumanian orphanage, and adopted by the rural community of west Mayo, the child that is named J.J. O'Malley should have grown up happy. The boy has no gift for it, though, and his new life has a brutal way of giving him plenty to be unhappy about. After a sudden tragedy, J.J. suffers a catastrophic mental breakdown. Unable to live with himself, he 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. When his coma goes online the nation turns to watch, and J.J. is quickly elevated to the status of cultural icon. Sex symbol, existential hero, T-shirt philosopher - his public profile now threatens to obscure the man himself behind a swirl of media profiles, online polls, and EEG tracings...Five narrators - his father, neighbour, teacher, public representative, and sweetheart - tell us the true story of his life and try to give some clue as to why he is the way he is now: floating in a maintained coma on a prison ship off the west coast of Ireland. Brilliantly imagined and artfully constructed - merging 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 our identities are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us.
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"* 'A cross between Nineteen Eighty Four and the X Files... Combines chillingly credible scenarios with acerbic political commentary...Powerfully imagined...Richly inventive and forcefully ironic, Notes From a Coma establishes McCormack as one of the most original and important voices in contemporary Irish fiction' - Irish Times * 'A mordant yet funny fable for our times, rich in contemporary cultural references' - Sunday Independent * 'A satisfying, thought-provoking read' - Big Issue * 'An imaginative and highly original novel' - Irish Independent"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The long-awaited new novel from the prize-winning author of Getting It in the Head. (20040922)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Mike McCormack is the most interesting writer to emerge from Ireland over the past decade. His short story collection Getting it In The Head ranks with the great Irish story collections, up there with McGahern's High Ground and Desmond Hogan's Lebanon Lodge. Now, nine years after Getting It In The Head, McCormack has produced his second novel in which his early promise bears rich fruit. Notes From A Coma is, to be reductive about it, the story of JJ O'Malley, a young man brought from a Romanian orphanage to McCormack's home county of Mayo who feels himself to be at a skewed angle to society and existence. He eventually comes to believe that what he needs is to give his mind a rest, to stop the thoughts and worries which are impinging upon his sanity. This JJ does by signing up to an experiment whereby men are placed in a coma on a prison ship for some weeks. But a plot summary can't do justice to this marvellous novel. McCormack is the most individual stylist to emerge from Ireland since John Banville was a young man and there isn't a duff sentence in the whole novel.It's by turns moving and disturbing, austere and celebratory. McCormack tackles a great deal (the footnotes to the book are a brilliant work in themselves, an examination of the texture of modern society Thomas Pynchon would have been proud of). But it's also a simple story of love and redemption, of joys and comradeship and the awkwardness of everyday relationships in a changing West of Ireland which has never been captured as well as it is here. The Booker Prize committee let themselves down by not naming this book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I think that this is a fantastic book and recommend it to anyone as a great read. Mike strikes me as being above all else a great storyteller. I just couldn't put this book down once I started reading it, the characters are developed in such a way that you really feel that you know them and the use of different narrators gives you great insight into the various characters as you see things from their point of view. I don't know if this is the first time this has been done but it's ingenius and to my mind really added to the book. I read the 'Notes from a Coma' in two days and cannot recommend it highly enough. Read this book!
By timfry
Format:Hardcover
Here is an uncanny and deeply moving description of the shock, horror, and sheer mind-numbing boredom facing any man now.
Take yer pick. Or go under.
Or read this and inoculate yourself against the slings and arrows of outrageous globalism .
Don't forget - injections hurt. You're not alone; or you'll feel less so after reading this...
Jesus wept. Literally. - And me.
Take yer pick. Or go under.
Or read this and inoculate yourself against the slings and arrows of outrageous globalism .
Don't forget - injections hurt. You're not alone; or you'll feel less so after reading this...
Jesus wept. Literally. - And me.
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