Author: Rob Doyle
Title: Here are the Young Men
Press: Bloomsbury
Prizes:
Date of publication: 2014
Date of purchase: September 2018
RRP: £7.99
Price of purchase: £1.95
Reading time: 2 Weeks
Rating: 4
Well heck. This was deeply disturbing from start to finish. A stark glance into an alternative Dublin populated with disillusioned youths and swarms of unidentifiable drink and drug addicts. The Celtic dread which characterises the novel is complimented by a plot line of parties, raves, train journeys and isolation. Four friends (who didn’t seem to like each other at the start of the novel) fall further apart and eventually become murderous in their drug addled states. Hard to tell whether this is a book advocating for abstinence from drugs, more cautious use or a better society in which to use them. Whatever the angle though, the hyperbolic descent of these teenage ‘men’ into somewhat depraved madness left me feeling a little confused. Maybe I’m being naïve but the extent of the characters’ immorality seemed more the stuff of horror than of realist fiction. All that said, Here are the Young Men satisfied my need for problematic (preferably celtic) masculinities and I can now comfortably leave these tropes behind for a couple of months at least.
Beth's Books (and other bits and bobs) 