Nights Beneath the Nation

New
Paperback
2009
$9.26

Dublin, 1950s. Leaving his country home behind, Daniel Ryan is seduced by the bright lights of the big city, by the wild parties of a bohemian theatre group, and by a young man called Anthony. Until one fateful, scandalous night brings the curtain down on Daniel's life in Dublin. Years later, and Daniel has returned from his exile in New York. Trying to blend into the shadows, he finds modern Ireland barely recognisable from the heady days of his youth. As he struggles to reconcile the events that caused his departure, he is pursued by a shady young man - and by the ghosts of his past. Set against the backdrop of a production of Fernando Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, Denis Kehoe's debut is a sepia-toned tribute to love and loss. A passionate story of love, jealousy and desire.

Synopsis

Dublin, 1950s. Leaving his country home behind, Daniel Ryan is seduced by the bright lights of the big city, by the wild parties of a bohemian theatre group, and by a young man called Anthony. Until one fateful, scandalous night brings the curtain down on Daniel's life in Dublin. Years later, and Daniel has returned from his exile in New York. Trying to blend into the shadows, he finds modern Ireland barely recognisable from the heady days of his youth. As he struggles to reconcile the events that caused his departure, he is pursued by a shady young man - and by the ghosts of his past. Set against the backdrop of a production of Fernando Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, Denis Kehoe's debut is a sepia-toned tribute to love and loss. A passionate story of love, jealousy and desire.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: Main
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 04 Jun 2009
ISBN 10: 1846686792
ISBN 13: 9781846686795

Media Reviews

Kehoe writes this engaging tale of long-buried secrets with poetic flair * Gay Times *
Vivid... a bold and confident debut... This heartfelt tale of love, loss and the possibilities of redemption marks out Denis Kehoe to be a very promising writer indeed * Attitude *
The book is particularly good at capturing the manic, energetic, adrenaline rush of newly liberated youth, especially when contrasted with its portrait of small-town life, where middle-aged men became the fathers they had once defined themselves against ... The book is very well plotted, with the dual time perspective doing the trick, and even becomes something of a page-turner, when a murder mystery element is added to the mix... The nexus of church/state control, bolstered by collusively villainous shrinks intent on pathologising and curing homosexuality, is subtly rendered, with reference even being made to Dr Noel Browne's abortive Mother and Child scheme. Small wonder the next generation of gays took to the streets. Love in a dark time, indeed... What Kehoe has done brilliantly is to examine the ramifications of a gay life, based on the life experience of an older gay man, and to evoke the cruel hypocrisies of a time which condemned homosexuals to a life of public-toilet or bathhouse assignations because gay pair-bonding was vigorously discouraged, by family and society. He has also told a good story, and will hopefully tell many more. -- Desmond Traynor * Sunday Independent *
Affecting and redeeming, this old-fashioned story of tormented love and longing takes some surprisingly brutal turns * Publishers Weekly USA *

Author Bio

Denis Kehoe was born in Dublin in 1978, where he now lives. He has studied philosophy and European literature and works as a critic, researcher and literacy tutor. Nights Beneath the Nation is his first novel.