Excerpt from Solar Bones by Mike McCormack, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Solar Bones

the bell
    the bell as
    hearing the bell as
        hearing the bell as standing here
        the bell being heard standing here
        hearing it ring out through the grey light of this
        morning, noon or night
        god knows
        this grey day standing here and
        listening to this bell in the middle of the day, the middle of
    the day bell, the Angelus bell in the middle of the day, ringing out
    through the grey light to
        here
        standing in the kitchen
        hearing this bell
        snag my heart and
        draw the whole world into
        being here
        pale and breathless after coming a long way to stand in this
    kitchen
        confused
        no doubt about that
        but hearing the bell from the village church a mile away as the
    crow flies, across the street from the garda station, beneath the giant
    sycamore trees which tower over it and in which a colony of rooks
    have made their nests, so many and so noisy that sometimes in spring
    when they are nesting their clamour fills the church and
        exhausted now, so quickly
        that sprint to the church and the bell
        yes, they are the real thing
        the real bells
not a transmission or a broadcast because
        there's no mistaking the fuller depth and resonance of the
    sound carried towards me across the length and breadth of this day
    and which, even at this distance reverberates in my chest
        a systolic thump from the other side of this parish, which lies
    on the edge of this known world with Sheeffry and Mweelrea to the
    south and the open expanse of Clew Bay to the north
        the Angelus bell
        ringing out over its villages and townlands, over the fields and
hills and bogs in between, six chimes of three across a minute and a
half, a summons struck on the lip of the void which gathers this parish
together through all its primary and secondary roads with
    all its schools and football pitches
    all its bridges and graveyards
    all its shops and pubs
the builder's yard and health clinic
    the community centre
    the water treatment plant and
    the handball alley
    the made world with
    all the focal points around which a parish like this gathers itself

Excerpted from Solar Bones by Mike McCormack. Copyright © 2017 by Mike McCormack. Excerpted by permission of Soho Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.