Irish author, Darragh McKeon,
discusses and reads from his debut novel, All That Is Solid Melts
Into Air, a brilliantly
imagined and searing account of life during and after the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster as the Soviet Union crumbles.
About The Book
Russia, 1986. On a run-down apartment block in
Moscow, a nine-year-old prodigy plays his piano silently for
fear of disturbing the neighbors. In a factory on the outskirts
of the city, his aunt makes car parts, hiding her dissident
past. In a nearby hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his
work, avoiding his failed marriage.
And in a village in Belarus, a teenage boy
wakes to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of
his neighbor's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at
the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has
happened.Now their lives will change forever.
An end-of-empire novel charting the collapse
of the Soviet Union, All That Is Solid Melts into Air is a
gripping and epic love story by a major new talent.
