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Set in contemporary Dublin and the surrounding countryside, Ghosts and Lightning is a picaresque account of Denny Cullen's life after he is called back home to attend his mother's funeral. Denny—a sweet-natured but disillusioned young man who feels powerless in the face of death, dope and the dole queue—is the steadiest in a cast of unstable characters. Denny and his lads fill their empty days with hooliganism, raucous parties, violence and even an exorcism, but their fearlessness and humor make them as irresistible as an expertly pulled pint of Guinness.
"Starred Review. He and his mates turn phrases so wry, so inventive, so Irish, that one feels the burning intelligence and resilience that reside in even the mangiest stripe of the Celtic tiger." - Publishers Weekly
"A kinder, gentler Irvine Welsh, first-novelist Byrne gives voice to a pack of Dublin lads...They prove irresistible." - Booklist
"At its best, this story calls to mind the opening stories in Joyce's Dubliners and easily rivals the work of Roddy Doyle and Patrick McCabe." - Library Journal
"Messy, funny, troubled and tragic." - Kirkus Reviews
"Young Dubliner Trevor Byrne's voice crackles with energy and dark humour in a richly-evoked novel of Dublin family life." - Irish Independent
This information about Ghosts and Lightning 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.
Trevor Byrne was born in 1981 and brought up in Clondalkin in south Dublin. He attended Trinity College and the University of Glamorgan. He is currently a tutor of creative writing at Glamorgan University.
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