The Lesser Bohemians
A Novel
-
-
4.7 • 3 Ratings
-
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
A breathtaking award-winning novel about an extraordinary, all-consuming love affair
One night an eighteen-year-old Irish girl, recently arrived in London to attend drama school, meets an older man—a well-regarded actor in his own right. While she is naive and thrilled by life in the big city, he is haunted by more than a few demons, and the clamorous relationship that ensues risks undoing them both.
A captivating story of passion and innocence, joy and discovery set against the vibrant atmosphere of 1990s London over the course of a single year, The Lesser Bohemians glows with the eddies and anxieties of growing up, and the transformative intensity of a powerful new love.
Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award
Shortlisted for the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize
Shortlisted for the 2016 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Eason Novel of the Year
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McBride's second novel is more ambitious than her acclaimed debut, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, and it retains the uncompromisingly Joycean brogue and diary-like intimations of adolescence that made that first novel such a success. Set between 1994 and 1995, it follows 18-year-old Eily, a boozy ing nue, as she leaves her native Ireland to attend drama school in London. There, caught in whirl of excess and the shadow of IRA terrorism, she is mostly assigned stereotypically Irish bit parts, but finds herself captivated by a much older actor named Stephen, an ex-junkie estranged from his family and young daughter. Initially meeting without names, they embark on a tempestuous relationship that reveals the worst in both while offering Stephen a chance at redemption and Eily a future. But the real focus is McBride's stream-of-consciousness prose, in which drinking is rendered as "pints turning telescope," "the lightless hall sings sanctuary from the frenzy" of a violent encounter, and a night of youthful debauchery leaves the revelers with "Satan under every skin. Skinful under all our skin." The story (especially when Stephen's backstory hijacks the narrative) isn't full enough to sustain McBride's style, which comes to seem less and less an accurate shorthand for first love. Still, this sophomore effort is striking enough to continue McBride's forging of a daring career.
