Lampo and Gelon are two unemployed potters in their thirties whose lives are spent between their usual tavern in Syracuse and the quarries where Athenian soldiers defeated in the Peloponnesian War have been left to die. Lampo, the narrator of the story, is roguish and irreverent, while Gelon is the sensitive and restrained counterpoint. Together they form a traditional comic duo, with their most common exchange involving a resounding "Quiet, Lampo."

Repetition is just one of the many comic tools Ferdia Lennon, who studied History and Classics at University College Dublin, employs in his literary debut. The most remarkable device, however, is the language in which the characters operate. Gelon and Lampo express themselves in modern Irish vernacular, a stylistic choice that not only contemporizes the narrative but also seeks to capture a sense of how marginalized individuals from ...