Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Publishes
May 7, 2024
272 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Like a sober, millennial Jesus' Son, Michael Deagler's debut novel is the poignant confession of a recovering addict adrift in the fragmenting landscape of America's middle class.
Don't worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He's sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances—if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself in the throng of adulthood.
Monk's haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing better than him—and most of them aren't even doing that well. His run-ins with former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers challenge his version of events past and present, revealing that recovery is not the happy ending he'd expected, only a fraught next chapter.
Shot through with humor, hubris, and hard-earned insight, Early Sobrieties charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.
"Wry, sharp, charming, resistant to neat closures and easy turns—a debut of enormous promise." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A young man surfaces from the depths of alcoholism in Deagler's pitch-perfect debut novel ... This is a standout."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Sharp and self-aware, with deep insight packed into no-fuss prose: a quarter-life-crisis tale for the ages."
—Bustle, "Most Anticipated Book" of Spring 2024
"Michael Deagler is the real deal. This novel is surprising in all the best ways. The actions of the complex and complicated people in this world are not predictable, but always, frighteningly, believable. Deagler writes with great control and understatement. This is a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer."
—Percival Everett, 2023 Windham Campbell Prize recipient and author of Dr. No
"Illuminating and moving—Deagler's debut pulls in a reader with such an inviting clarity. There's something about the honesty in this voice that creates a lot of room for the reader to connect, imagine, and feel."
—Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade
This information about Early Sobrieties was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michael Deagler's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Harper's, McSweeneys' Quarterly Concern, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City.
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