Doyle, Rob

Confidently told, this second long-form work from Doyle (after Here Are the Young Men) alternates 11 vignettes with letters to an anonymous correspondent as the masterly narrative pacing brilliantly counterbalances lurid episodes and sometimes terror with devastating wit and epiphany. As ever, Doyle’s prose is compulsively readable, and his insights always credible and occasionally astonishing.

Recalling Irvine Welsh's work, especially Glue, and Niall Griffith's Grits, Doyle's brutal debut takes place in 2003, when Ireland was poised for economic recovery after the demise of the Celtic Tiger. It paints a stark picture of middle-class youth unable to articulate why the unimpaired life is not worth living.