ardal o'hanlon

A surprise best-seller in Britain, this outrageous, weirdly funny first novel will appeal to fans of Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha. Not since Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye has literature seen a young man with as much contempt for hypocrisy and phoniness as Patrick Scully, the narrator of this brilliantly observed tale of a nineteen-year-old's frustrations and dreams. Stuck in a dead- job in Dublin, while his friends pursue useless degrees at the university, Patrick escapes for a week to his hometown of Killeeny, a few hours' bus ride from Dublin. There he hooks up with his childhood chum, Balls O'Reilly, and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Francesca, who, as we learn in chapters from her diary, is more interested in Balls than she'd want anyone, especially Patrick, to know. What follows is a rollicking week of carousing, drinking, and depravity, all seen through Patrick's searing and unforgiving eyes. Laced with hilarious small-town insight, this gripping first novel builds to a shocking climax as Patrick's insight into the duplicity of his so-called friends becomes more than he can bear.