Set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of Communism, "Men in Space" follows a cast of dissolute Bohemians, political refugees, football referees, deaf police agents, assassins and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon's melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters' ellipses and near misses as they career vertiginously through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional and metaphysical. What emerges is a vision a world in a state of disintegration.
Tom McCarthy was born in 1969 and lives in London. He is known for the reports, manifestos and media interventions he has made as General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS), a semi-fictitious avant-garde network. His nonfiction book Tintin and the Secret of Literature was published by Granta Books in 2006.
"McCarthy is fast revealing himself as a master craftsman who is steering the contemporary novel towards exciting territories." THE OBSERVER"I, for one, am glad that the independent publishing house Alma Books is brave enough to back such idiosyncratic work." Alastair Sooke THE DAILY TELEGRAPH"Men in Space is a compelling and imaginative philosophical novel" Dan Fox FRIEZE MAGAZINE"a confident and intelligent meditation on failed flights of transcendence." Toby Lichtg TLS