Tender
A modern classic of love and longing, for fans of Sally Rooney
-
-
3.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- £5.99
-
- £5.99
Publisher Description
‘Gripping, completely compelling . . . A sublime talent’ – Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning Heart
‘Captures what it is like to be young in Dublin with grace, subtlety and sympathy’ – Colm Tóibín, author of Long Island
Catherine and James are as close as two friends could ever be. Witty, talented and charming, James is unlike anyone Catherine has encountered before, and she finds herself hungry to explore with him all that Dublin in the ‘90s has to offer – even as James struggles to find his place in it.
But as their connection intensifies, Catherine discovers that there’s a fine line between longing and love, friendship and obsession . . .
From the author of the multi-award-winning debut Solace, Tender by Belinda McKeon is a dazzling exploration of the complexities of sexuality and human relationships, a novel about friendship and youth, about selfhood, about the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we are taught to tell.
‘A superb and sophisticated writer’ – The Times
‘Richly nuanced and utterly absorbing’ – The Guardian
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At first glance, McKeon's second work of fiction (after Irish Book of the Year winner Solace) explores well-trod themes. Two college-aged youngsters in Dublin meet through mutual acquaintances, develop a friendship, and experience much elation and angst over the course of a year together in the late 1990s. But as the raw and claustrophobic story progresses, it becomes devastatingly clear that the path their relationship is taking is far from ordinary. For one, budding photographer James is gay and closeted, during a time when homosexuality isn't widely accepted in Ireland. His anguish and frustration at not being able to love freely is deftly handled by McKeon, who mostly relies on what isn't said to lend weight to his predicament. Instead, what propels the plot forward is the sheer force of Catherine's blind love for James. She wants all of him, first emotionally, and then physically a wrinkle that adds depth to the friends' tragic coupling and makes their breaking apart so easy to predict and so heartbreaking to read. Catherine's self-destructive obsession with James may verge on maddening for readers (though the author's choice to saddle her with an interest in Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters, written about Sylvia Plath and published in 1998, was a smart one). But the book's final chapters, detailing the older and wiser friends' bittersweet reunion in New York 14 years later, proves that time does heal the heart's deepest wounds or, as McKeon so aptly demonstrates, at least most of them.
