Hello Mr. Bones & Goodbye Mr. Rat

Patrick McCabe is the acclaimed author of The Butcher Boy, Breakfast on Pluto—both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into films by Neil Jordan—and Winterwood, which was awarded the 2007 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year award. Hello Mr. Bones and Goodbye Mr. Rat, two dark tales from two deceased narrators – bottled-lightning treats that will make you gasp, shiver and squirm.   In Hello Mr. Bones two damaged souls have—thanks to each other’s love—turned their lives around. But as London’s weather takes a turn for the worse, so do their fates, and raw evil runs riot the night of the impossible hurricane.   Goodbye Mr. Rat centers around the spirit of an IRA bomber watching over his ex-lover as she takes his ashes back to his rural hometown. This girl from northern Indiana may not be ready for rural Ireland, yet the townsfolk of Iron Valley certainly have plans for her. In this stark, blackly humorous story, McCabe writes like M. R. James if he took a wrong turn onto an Irish country road.

Claire Kilroy, The Guardian

PRAISE FOR Hello Mr. Bones / Goodbye Mr. Rat: ‘Stark, fierce, and wonderful . . . McCabe is a master of both the demented narrative and demented narrator. Beneath the ghosts and ghoulies, however, lies a compassionate exploration of the aftermath of psychological damage.”

JP O'Malley, The Observer

“A rewarding experience which sees the master of the Irish gothic genre return to his best form in years.”

Paul Dunn, The Times

"Both bits of Hello and Goodbye are exuberant and witty and Goodbye Mr Rat deserves to rekindle his former glories."

John Boland, The Independent   PRAISE FOR PATRICK MCCABE:

"McCabe is especially good at conjuring up the menace of psychopaths who perpetrate acts of barbarism under the spurious guise of ideologies."

Roddy Doyle

"Brilliant, unique. Patrick McCabe pushes your head through the book and you come out the other end gasping, admiring, and knowing that reading fiction will never be the same again."

Washington Post Book World

"Startlingly original."

New York Times Book Review

"Stunning."

About the Author

Patrick McCabe is the author of The Butcher Boy (winner of the Irish Times/Aer lingus Literature Prize and shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize) and Breakfast on Pluto (shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize), both of which were made into highly acclaimed films by director Neil Jordan. He also wrote Winterwood, winner of the 2006 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Novel of the Year. He lives in Sligo, Ireland.

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