A novel by Darragh McKeon,  All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, has been published in the U.S. by Harper Collins and will be featured at a Beyond Nuclear special book event on Monday, May 19th at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC.  

A theater director by profession, McKeon spent eight years shaping his debut novel. It follows the stories of four primary characters during the unfolding Chernobyl reactor disaster and the fall of the Soviet Union. Yevgeni is a child piano prodigy living in Moscow; his aunt, Maria, a former dissident journalist, now works in a factory; Maria’s ex-husband Grigory, a talented surgeon, leaves Moscow to treat Chernobyl victims; and another young boy, Artyom, is evacuated from his rural home close to the stricken reactor.

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is McKeon’s first novel. Originally from Ireland and now living in New York, he was inspired after Chernobyl Children International, an organization created and led by Adi Roche, began bringing children harmed by the aftermath of the nuclear disaster to his home town for “radiation vacations.”