City of Bohane

* Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Book Award in the First Novel category *

A blazingly original, wildly stylish, and pulpy debut novel

"City of Bohane, the extraordinary first novel by the Irish writer Kevin Barry, is full of marvels. They are all literary marvels, of course: marvels of language, invention, surprise. Savage brutality is here, but so is laughter. And humanity. And the abiding ache of tragedy." --Pete Hamill, The New York Times Book Review (front page)

Forty or so years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the North Rises, and the eerie bogs of the Big Nothin' that the city really lives. For years it has all been under the control of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say Hartnett's old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 03/13/2012
ISBN: 9781555976088
Pages: 288
Weight: 1.23lbs
Size: 9.19h x 6.33w x 0.94d
Award: International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award - Winner

Review Citations: Booklist 10/15/2011 pg. 30
Library Journal 11/01/2011 pg. 69
Publishers Weekly 11/21/2011 pg. 29
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2011
Foreword 02/29/2012
Shelf Awareness 03/23/2012
New York Times Book Review 04/01/2012 pg. 1
New York Times Book Review 04/08/2012 pg. 30
New Yorker (The) 04/16/2012 pg. 109
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/02/2012 pg. 25