The Bone Clocks: A Novel - Hardcover

Mitchell, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0676979319 ISBN 13: 9780676979312

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2014

Synopsis

“The novelist who’s been showing us the future of fiction” (The Washington Post), David Mitchell delivers a kaleidoscopic, serpentine masterpiece that navigates between characters, eras, and realms of possibility to weave its astonishing spell.
 
An eloquent conjurer of intricate, interconnected tales, a genre-bending daredevil, and a master prose stylist—David Mitchell has outdone himself. The Bone Clocks is a hypnotic Rubik’s cube of a novel that begs to be taken apart and put back together long after the final piece is fit into place.
 
Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life.  But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences  reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
 
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.
 
A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence; a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from Occupied Iraq; a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list: all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2014: Fans of David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet) have been salivating over the release of The Bone Clocks —and they have every reason to. This is a feast of a book—perhaps the author’s best to date—a saga that spans decades, characters, genres, and events from Mitchell's other novels. The structure is most similar to Cloud Atlas, with The Bone Clocks pivoting around a central character: Holly Sykes. Each chapter/novella is narrated from the perspective of an intersecting character, with settings ranging from England in the 80s to the apocalyptic future. Each story could stand alone as a work of genius, as they slowly build on Holly’s unwitting role in a war between two groups with psychic powers, culminating in a thrilling showdown reminiscent of the best of Stephen King. Taken together this is a hugely entertaining page-turner, an operatic fantasy, and an often heartbreaking meditation on mortality. It’s not to be missed. – Matt Kaye

About the Author

DAVID MITCHELL is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream and Ghostwritten. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2007. With KA Yoshida, Mitchell co-translated from the Japanese the international bestselling memoir, The Reason I Jump. He lives in Ireland with his wife and 2 children.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0676979319
• ISBN 13: 9780676979312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640