The Bone Clocks
by David Mitchell
One life in 6 segments, our times, and a twisted vendetta between 2 rings of quasi-immortals, The Bone Clocks is the rich and strange new novel from award-winning and international bestselling author David Mitchell.
In 1984, teenager Holly Sykes runs away from home, a pub in Kent. Almost 60 years later, we find her in the far west of Ireland, raising 2 young children as the world’s climate collapses. In between, Holly is encountered as a waitress in a Swiss resort by a Cambridge undergraduate sociopath; as a mother, and the put-upon wife of a journalist covering the Iraq War; and, during the present decade, as the widowed confidante of a self-obsessed author of fading powers. Yet these changing personae are only part of the story, as Holly’s life is repeatedly intersected by a slow-motion war between a cult of predatory soul-decanters and a band of vigilantes led by one Doctor Marinus. Holly begins as an unwitting pawn in this war–but may prove to be its decisive weapon.
The arc of a life, a social seismograph, a fantasy of shadows and an inquiry into aging, mortality and survival, The Bone Clocks could only have been written by the much loved David Mitchell.
In 1984, teenager Holly Sykes runs away from home, a pub in Kent. Almost 60 years later, we find her in the far west of Ireland, raising 2 young children as the world’s climate collapses. In between, Holly is encountered as a waitress in a Swiss resort by a Cambridge undergraduate sociopath; as a mother, and the put-upon wife of a journalist covering the Iraq War; and, during the present decade, as the widowed confidante of a self-obsessed author of fading powers. Yet these changing personae are only part of the story, as Holly’s life is repeatedly intersected by a slow-motion war between a cult of predatory soul-decanters and a band of vigilantes led by one Doctor Marinus. Holly begins as an unwitting pawn in this war–but may prove to be its decisive weapon.
The arc of a life, a social seismograph, a fantasy of shadows and an inquiry into aging, mortality and survival, The Bone Clocks could only have been written by the much loved David Mitchell.