The Journey Home (James A. Michener Fiction) - Hardcover

Bolger, Dermot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0292718063 ISBN 13: 9780292718067

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2008

Synopsis

Shortlisted, Finalist, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, Fiction Category, 2008

Young Francis Hanrahan dreams desperately of a life different from that of his country-born, suburban-living parents. On his first day at his first job Francis makes his first real friend. Shay, a would-be older brother, introduces "Hano" to Dublin's appealingly seedy after-hours bars and drug-fueled parties. They are joined by Cait, a troubled teenager who spends her days in a stupor. But the noir thrills of underground Dublin cannot conceal the unemployment, corruption, and violence strangling the city. The Plunkett brothers, masters of "the subtle everyday corruption on which a dynasty was built" will use the friends--with tragic results.

Torn between his friends, his family, and his own ideals, Hano ultimately falls victim to these powerful forces and commits a heinous crime. He flees through the countryside with Cait, wondering, as he narrates the events that set him on this path, if there is a home at the end of it.

Controversial for its gritty portrait of Dublin in the 1980s, The Journey Home is Dermot Bolger's unflinching look at the personal cost of social progress, and those, innocent or not, lost during the journey.

About this title

Review:

‘A film-noir of a book, with a double murder at its core...excitingly and absorbingly told.’ Sunday Times

‘It is the best novel about Dublin since Joyce. Hano’s initiation into sleazy Dublin nightlife and Shay’s eventual tragic humiliation is conveyed with a compelling, even reckless, intensity.’ Irish Independent

‘Devastatingly forceful...Bolger is to Dublin what Dickens was to Victorian London: archivist, reporter, sometimes infuriated lover.’ Joseph O’Connor

About the Author:

DERMOT BOLGER, of Dublin, Ireland, is an award-winning novelist, poet, playwright, and publisher. His many works include the much-lauded novels The Woman's Daughter and The Valparaiso Voyage.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0292718063
• ISBN 13: 9780292718067
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 250