Solar Bones, a novel written in a single 223-page sentence by Mayo author Mike McCormack has been voted the Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year for 2016. Described as “a hymn to modern small-town life”, the experimental novel received unanimously positive reviews around the time of its publication.
The Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year 2016 was chosen by public vote from the list of category winners announced at the recent Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. Previous winners of this award include Asking For It by Louise O’Neill, Academy St by Mary Costello, Staring at Lakes by Michael Harding, The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan, and Solace by Belinda McKeon.
Published by Dublin-based Tramp Press in May 2016, Solar Bones is a profound new work by one of Ireland’s most important contemporary novelists. Once a year, on All Souls’ Day, it is said in Ireland that the dead may return. Solar Bones is the story of one such visit. Marcus Conway, a middle-aged engineer, turns up one afternoon at his kitchen table and considers the events that took him away and then brought him home again. Funny and strange, McCormack’s ambitious and other-worldly novel plays with form and defies convention. A beautiful and haunting elegy, this story of order and chaos, love and loss captures how minor decisions ripple into waves and test our integrity every day.
Speaking about his award win Mike McCormack commented that he was "delighted with this wholly unexpected honour". Solar Bones was also recently awarded the Goldsmith Prize 2016.
