All That is Solid Melts into Air

All That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory. 'Daring, ambitious, epic, moving' Colm Tóibín 'Exhilarating, thrilling, brilliantly imagined, beautifully written' Colum McCann Russia, 1986. In a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old piano prodigy practices silently for fear of disturbing the neighbours. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, trying to hide her dissident past. In the hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work to avoid facing his failed marriage. And in a rural village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes up to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbour's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened. Now their lives will change forever. All That is Solid Melts into Air is an astonishing novel of terrifying beauty that captures the end of an era. Darragh McKeon was born in 1979 and grew up in the midlands of Ireland. He has worked as a theatre director, and lives in New York. This is his first novel.