Here Are the Young Men
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Meet Matthew, Rez, Cocker, and Kearney. They've just finished school, and are facing the great void of the future, celebrating their freedom in this unpromising adult reality with self-obliteration. They roam through Dublin, their only aims the next drink, the next high, and a callow, fearful idea of sex. Kearney, in particular, pushes boundaries in a way that once made him a leader in the group, but increasingly an object of fear. When a trip to the U.S. turns Kearney's violent fantasies ever darker, the other boys are forced to face both the violence within themselves and the limits of their own indifference.
Here Are the Young Men portrays a spiritual fallout, harbinger of the collapse of national illusion in "Celtic Tiger" Ireland. Visceral and chilling, this debut novel marks the arrival of a formidable literary talent, channeling an unnerving anarchic energy to devastating effect.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Doyle's highly readable debut novel, three Dublin teenagers grope through the first stages of adulthood during the summer after their high school graduation. Kearney loves trouble and altered states of consciousness; Matthew is a fairly dutiful student and son, taking a job right away at a Shell gas station; Rez is a bit of a dreamer and never seems totally present. It's 2003, and alcohol, sex, and drugs are on the menu for all three young men. They embark on several adventures, both separately and as a trio. The restless Kearney takes his craziness to Boston, which does not satisfy his wanderlust. For disaffected Matthew, nearly everything is a letdown. He immerses himself in work and turns away from his friends. The imaginative Rez can find neither meaning nor peace in his romance with the withholding Julie or in his intense studying and writing. He slides into depression and attempts suicide. Doyle deftly shuffles the stories of his three lads in short chapters from their various perspectives. But his careful prose often doesn't match the immediacy and grit of the characters' crises. And the choice to write only the Matthew chapters in first person throws the books oddly out of balance. Still, a lively debut by a promising young writer.
