Customer Reviews

Notes From a Coma

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I was fortunate to be invited by Mike to the recent launch of his new book, NOTES FROM A COMA, at Nimmo's (near the Spanish Arch in Galway). Highly successful launch, packed to the rafters with people.

The premise of NOTES FROM A COMA is completely intriguing and I'm looking forward to the read. I now own the '1st Signed One' as Mike incribed it to me. The story, ah well, there's more than one, almost parallel universes (I love those things - and I myself believe they exist). Oh, there, I digress. But Mike makes one do that. NOTES FROM A COMA is the story of a Romanian orphan adopted by a Co. Mayo bachelor, Anthony O'Malley. As the book's blurb states " rescued from the squalor of a Romanian 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."

Eventually JJ suffers a mental breakdown and 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 JJ is suddenly elevated to the status of cultural icon. Sex symbol, existential hero, T-shirt philosopher - his public now threatens to obscure the man himself. The ultimate reality show!

In the parallel story, five narrators - his father, neighbour, teacher, public representative, and sweetheart - tell us the story of his life... To Mike McCormack this is crucial. Mike believes that our identities are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us.

As I said - completely intriguing premise.

Mike grew up on a farm in Louisburgh in Mayo. Today he's the writer in residence at UCG (University College Galway). It's taken him seven years to write this book. As he says himself, he's a slow writer. He has two previous books: GETTING IT IN THE HEAD (which won many awards, including the Rooney Prize) and CROWE'S REQUIEM.