FANS OF DAVID MITCHELL know to keep their expectations both high and flexible. The British novelist’s previous work includes the Booker-nominated Cloud Atlas, which marries six interlocking stories and genres into one ingenious whole; the charming semi-autobiographical bildungsroman Black Swan Green; and 2010’s foray into historical fiction, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a meticulously detailed and relatively straightforward account of a Dutch shipping outfit in the 19th century.
Few contemporary authors switch modes so elegantly or so compulsively as Mitchell—so it shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention that he mixes things up once again with The Bone Clocks, his first stab at what can almost accurately be called “paranormal fantasy.”