City of Bohane: A Novel [Hardcover]

Kevin Barry (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 13, 2012

* Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Book Award in the First Novel category *

 

A blazingly original, wildly stylish, and pulpy debut novel

 

"City of Bohane, the extraordinary first novel by the Irish writer Kevin Barry, is full of marvels. They are all literary marvels, of course: marvels of language, invention, surprise. Savage brutality is here, but so is laughter. And humanity. And the abiding ache of tragedy." —Pete Hamill, The New York Times Book Review (front page)

 

Forty or so years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the North Rises, and the eerie bogs of the Big Nothin’ that the city really lives. For years it has all been under the control of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there’s trouble in the air. They say Hartnett’s old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for City of Bohane:

 

"City of Bohane, the extraordinary first novel by the Irish writer Kevin Barry, is full of marvels. They are all literary marvels, of course: marvels of language, invention, surprise. Savage brutality is here, but so is laughter. And humanity. And the abiding ache of tragedy." —Pete Hamill, The New York Times Book Review (front cover)

"Barry's first novel is a grizzled piece of futuristic Irish noir with strong ties to the classic gang epics of Yore. . . . The genre stew--which incorporates a Machiavellian alcoholic mother, flag-waving street fights, and uncertain alliances--is imbued throughout with Barry's inventively vulgar language." —The New Yorker

"As you prowl the streets of Bohane with Barry's motley assortment of thugs and criminal masterminds, you will find yourself drawn into their world and increasingly sympathetic to their assorted aims and dreams." —Boston Globe

"City of Bohane offers a dystopian vision that is splendidly drawn if not shockingly inventive. . . . [Barry's] descriptions are notably vibrant (a December day is 'as miserable as hells scullery) and his syntax strikingly creative." —Cleveland Plain Dealer, Grade: A

 

"Although Barry has set this bewitching, stylized noir pageant of underworld dynastic upheaval in the grim near-future, it has a timeless air, with spookily beautiful evocations of ancient Irish mythology and an elegiac sense of civilization's attenuation while the old, bred-in-the-bones urges are resurgent." —Booklist (starred review)

"Barry seems to relish splashing around in the literary mud puddles left behind by language-obsessed writers like Flann O'Brian, Cormac McCarthy, and Irvine Welsh. Meanwhile, an equally passionate love of film (think Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone) casts a flickering shadow over Barry's fictional world's pop culture crashes into language, and they are both dressed to the nines." —Shelf Awareness

"This wild-ass ripsnorter, set in Ireland about 40 years from now, is a bravura, Nabokovian mind-blower. . . . It's elegiac, lyrical, rollicking fun that mixes Brian Friel with A Clockwork Orange." —Library Journal, "Books for Dudes"

“The best novel to come out of Ireland since Ulysses.” —Irvine Welsh

"Kevin Barry is a genius. He is doing with his life and his gift exactly what he was put on this earth to do and continues the long and great line of Irish writers. His debut novel City of Bohane is an original and remarkable work of inventiveness. . . . As I read, I felt fortunate to gawp at this wondrous treasure trove of Barry's creativity and mastery." —Ethel Rohan

"Kevin Barry is the real thing, and nothing can stop him." —David Guterson

"City of Bohane is an unforgettably wonderful novel: hilarious, unique, utterly believable. It's Joyce meets Anthony Burgess, and as funny as Flann O'Brien. We Kevin Barry fans have known for a while that he is a writer of rarest gifts, but this book is an electrifying masterpiece." —Joseph O'Connor

"Kevin Barry is unique, a one-man school. His work is hilarious and unpredictable--and always brilliant." —Roddy Doyle

About the Author

Kevin Barry was born in Limerick in 1969 and now lives in Dublin. His short fiction has appeared widely on both sides of the Atlantic, most recently in The New Yorker. City of Bohane is his first novel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; First Edition edition (March 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781555976088
• ISBN-13: 978-1555976088
• ASIN: 1555976085
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #501,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, original, stylish, violent, beautiful and unique December 7, 2011

By Ripple

Format:Paperback

Bohane is a thoroughly lawless Irish town, set in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set in 2053, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuries. It's a violent place fueled by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get into. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and "City of Bohane" is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly good.

The book's brilliance lies not so much in the plot though. It's a relatively straightforward gang land power struggle. Neither does it solely lie with the great range of characters, although they are amusingly well drawn. From the gangland leader and part time mummy's boy Logan Hartnett, his domineering mother, Girly, to the young pretenders Jenni Ching, Wolfie Stanners and a certain Mr Burke, whose nickname rhymes with `mucker', through to the arch manipulator Ol' Boy Mannion.

Great though these characters are, and Kevin Barry frequently goes to great lengths to describe their bizarre fashion tastes, it is the way that Barry uses language to describe the scenes that is so brilliant. Hardly a page went by without it invoking a smile at the sheer brilliance of the descriptions. It's difficult to give examples, because of the unique style of the language which taken out of context is merely confusing, but in a bar "ceiling fans whirred, noirishly against the night, and were stoical, somehow, like the old uncles of the place, all raspy and emphysemic". He does this again and again.

The book's cultural influences are worn on its sleeve and are wide ranging. Most obviously in literary terms, there are elements of "A Clockwork Orange" but in terms of the imagery, it's very cimematic, and in fact the film right have already been sold. "Gangs of New York" in particular springs to mind in style terms. There are also hints of deeper mythologies throughout and indeed, the relationship between Logan and his mother is all very "Grendal".

Violent and scary though Bohane is, you get a strong sense that Barry very much likes his creation. It's usually a fair bet that when a male author clothes his young female characters in catsuits that this is very much a place he'd like to be! It's probably fair to say that it's a book that has more male reader appeal to it just because of the subject matter. It's probably not the best Christmas present for your Granny, unless she has a penchant for swearing and "hoors, herbs, fetish parlours, grog pits and needle alleys".

Brilliant too is the vernacular of Bohane. Although at first this can be difficult to penetrate, it makes great sense ("peepers" are eyes for example) and the use of repeated phrases like "y'check" and "ye sketchin" invoke gang culture and language. Barry is also very good at the physical and environmental influences on the people and the city. The cold dark heart of the book is the Bohane river that gives this city its name.

Also interesting is the relationship between this future-set world and nostalgia. The older characters, including the banished former gang leader, are all prone to nostalgia and while the book is set in the future, the world is very much one of the past in terms of the lack of technology.

The subject matter and style won't be to everyone's taste, but it's a book that I could enthuse about for hours. It's hugely original, completely stylish and quite possibly brilliant. Real life is quite dull after you've visited Bohane - I want to go back, "y'check me?".

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Whatever's wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness...is a taint off that river." March 17, 2012

By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

In this imaginative and unconventional novel, Irish author Kevin Barry creates an almost feudal, fictional city in the west of Ireland in the year 2053. Instead of being "futuristic," however, the novel is a throwback to simpler pagan times in which life is seen as the rule of the strong over the weak, with vengeance and its inevitable bloodshed a way of imposing control. The lack of real "civilization," which may or may not have existed in Bohane's past, seems to have no connection to any apocalypse, and, despite the 2053 setting, the town has no technology at all, and never has. Though Sweet Baba Jay (Jesus) is often mentioned and is accepted as a living force in the lives of some of the people, their behavior and actions in their dog-eat-dog world more closely resemble the ravening hordes which swept down in pagan times to wreak havoc on weaker tribes.

Having turned normal expectations upside down, the author ultimately creates a strange but often exciting and darkly humorous novel about the bizarre characters who inhabit Bohane, a tiny city on a western peninsula, its day-to-day life controlled by armed gangs and their bosses. Logan Hartnett, also called the Albino, the Long Fella, the `Bino, and H, is the "most ferocious power in the city," ruling the Back Trace, "a most evil labyrinth." He also controls Smoketown, an area of "hoors, herb, fetish parlours, grog pits, [and] needle alleys." The Cusacks, who live in the Northside Rises, are challenging his power, however, and the Gant Broderick, a man who has been gone from Bohane for twenty-five years, has now returned. When a Feud is declared, to much fanfare and the showing of flags and colors, all hell breaks loose. Complicating the issues is Hartnett's enlistment of the "sandpikeys," a group of Neanderthals led by Prince Tubby, who live at the tip of the peninsula.

Author Kevin Barry creates a whole new vocabulary for his characters, and their vernacular, though sometimes challenging to translate into standard English, can usually be understood through its context. The sand-pikeys are almost non-verbal.

In a peculiar but humorous twist, the author concentrates throughout the novel on describing all the characters' clothing as if the novel were a fashion magazine. At one point, Logan Hartnett wears "a pale green suit, slim-cut, of thin spring cotton, a pair of burnt-orange arsekickers with a pronounced, bulbous toe, a ruffle-fronted silver shirt...a purple neckscarf." This kind of description is matched throughout the novel with capsule descriptions of the characters themselves: Gant Broderick had "a pair of hands on him the size of a Belfast sinks." Harnett's wife Macu was "polite as the seeping of a poison," and Wolfie Stanners has a "chick pea head." Descriptions of places are equally vivid.

The novel is chock full of unusually quirky but simple characters as they engage in turf battles similar to those of most crime or Wild West novels. The confusion regarding the time of the novel and why the town feels more like 1953 than 2053, however, is strange, and the novel itself seems to be a sum of many unusual parts without an over-riding thematic structure or focus to bring it all together in a stylistic resolution. Barry is a whirlwind of incredible power and imagination whose work would seem to benefit from more control. Mary Whipple

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Clockwork Irishmen, or maybe Irewocky March 13, 2012

By T. Edmund

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Set in the future (or at least in a place that believes 2053 has long past) The City of Bohane is a brutal place run by gangsta Irish, and their 'hoors'

In this future, or alternative universe, language is much changed. For some this will mean an original refreshing novel, for some (myself) this will mean a confusing mash of bizarre prose and difficult to follow plot.

While an obvious comparison is made to A Clockwork Orange, Barry fails to achieve the same level of moral, political and personal commentary that Anthony Burgess did.

My personal reaction:

Frustration, the authors use of "Gant wore" "Ol'boy saw" continually broke the fourth wall, and reminded me I was reading a story, not immersed in the story.

Barry also couldn't seem to commit fully to a new language, much of the narration and 'letters' characters wrote to each other were in standard english, despite their conversation being completely in 'Bohane speak.'

Ultimately while City of Bohane is a great achievement for Barry, in terms of reader experience the ideas could have been done with a novella or even short story.