Ghosts and Lightning
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
An outstanding debut novel set in Dublin from a young Irish novelist that echoes the poignant, comical and gritty voices of Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, and Irvine Welsh.
Set in contemporary Dublin, this gritty, funny, and compelling novel is also a poignant exploration of grief, poverty, and love. Denny Cullen is just beginning his new life when he's called home to attend his mother's funeral. As he grieves for the loss of his mother, he must come to terms with a changed Dublin full of chaos and desperation, and he must ultimately decide what to keep, and what to leave behind. By turns hilarious and heart-breaking, Denny takes the reader on an unforgettable tour of twenty-first-century Dublin that is as irresistible as an expertly pulled pint of Guinness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although gothic tropes pervade Byrne's strong debut novel, they're doused or soused, rather with vibrant Dublin brogue and streetwise wit. On the death of his mother, 26-year-old Denny Cullen comes home to a small, "disgraceful fuckin kip" in Dublin's sprawl, where dwells his quite alive and quite drunk lesbian sister, Paula. She claims there's a gender-bending ghost hiding under the bed, so their friend and methadone-addicted spiritual adviser, Pajo, conducts a kitchen-table s ance that prompts Denny to find meaning and purpose in his own life. Overwhelmed by grief and alienated from his father and brothers, Denny struggles against the boozy tides of violent childhood memories, unemployment and low self-esteem. If his aimlessness threatens to scuttle a plot that depends upon the shenanigans of his friends and their enemies, then it's Denny's voice and sensibility that buoy the narrative. He and his mates turn phrases so wry, so inventive, so Irish, that one feels the burning intelligence and resilience that reside in even the mangiest stripe of the Celtic tiger.
