Remembrance Sunday

Simon Hanlon, an Irish architect in New York, has a chance encounter with a childhood friend. Something she says provokes a rush of dark recollection, and a seizure. Every day, then, there is another seizure.As Simon waits for an operation that could leave him unable to form memories or emotions, he engages with a long-suppressed trauma from his past: the Remembrance Sunday parade in Enniskillen in 1987, which he attended with his father, and which was targeted by a deadly terrorist bomb. Recalling this event, and a mysterious encounter that preceded it, he tries to understand what links his fifteen-year-old and forty-eight-year-old selves. Remembrance Sunday explores the legacies of violence and grief, and the question of how we can understand our own lives and the lives of others.What does trauma do to us, and what makes a person want to harm another? Moving between New York City's Chinatown and the border farms of Northern Ireland, this is a moving and unforgettable novel about love, empathy and the weight of history on a young life. ***PRAISE FOR DARRAGH MCKEON'A startling achievement . .. McKeon's characters may already have receded into history, but by imprinting their triumphs and tragedies onto the imagination with such visceral empathy, he has given them a deserving afterlife in this powerful novel' New York Times Book Review on All That Is Solid Melts into Air'This daring and ambitious novel blends historical epic and love story . .. Darragh McKeon handles the struggles of his characters with care and compassion and creates a book rich with resonance far beyond its historical moment' Colm Toibin on All That Is Solid Melts into Air'All That Is Solid Melts into Air is a debut to rattle all the windows and open up the ventricles of the heart . .. McKeon is here to stay' Colum McCann