Love and Sleep: A Romance [Paperback]

Sean O'Reilly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 22, 2003

Sean O’Reilly’s debut novel is a journey into the dark and uncomfortable psyche of Niall, a young man on the run from the past and denying himself a future. In the nineties, soon after the first IRA cease-fire has ended, Niall returns to the damaged city of his youth after years of wandering around Europe—from city to city and woman to woman. His family has fractured, and Niall’s failure to show up at his father’s funeral has encouraged a bitter response. Just as his memories, fears, and desires threaten to consume him, Niall enters into a dangerous relationship with Lorna, a committed socialist with a dark side of her own. Love and Sleep introduces a new and strikingly original voice in post-Troubles Irish fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Pain and rage engulf Niall when he returns to Derry after years of living on the continent. He doesn't attend his father's funeral, much to brother Michael's disgust, and it isn't long until Michael throws him out after the police dump Niall at the door after one of his hostile drunken binges. Niall's world--Northern Ireland in the early 1990s, just after the first IRA ceasefire ended--is dark, disordered, and despairing. So when he encounters passionate socialist Lorna, she rouses no sexual interest in him. Indeed, she seems drawn to her older mentor in the movement. Yet the two younger people eventually drift together in aimless, nihilistic ennui, shot through with bouts of furious yelling and well lubricated with drink. O'Reilly is especially good at evoking the anonymous longing of the disenfranchised young and at times recalls the existential angst of Jean-Paul Sartre, with a dollop of Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov for good measure. Readers whose tastes run toward such stuff will be rewarded by a complementary richness of language and texture. Whitney Scott
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Review

'Sean O'Reilly is a writer of massive range and impressive innovation... He is a stylist and you find yourself beguiled, finessed, seduced and dazzled.' Eoin McNamee 'An original and affecting voice in Irish fiction, one infected by a muted pathos and bleak lyricism.' Irish Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (July 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078671235X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786712359
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,340,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars The Joy of Bleak, July 25, 2011

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Ms. Mary O'donnell (Kildare, Ireland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love and Sleep (Paperback)

Well-written novel. Language beautiful, arresting and succinct. This is the book's main attraction. The activity (there is no plot) depends a lot on the fact of the war in the North of Ireland being of interest in itself, which it isn't necessarily. The characters caught within the hopelessness of their social and political milieu are solid, young, and even passionate in an odd way, if passion can have a negative value. In a world of tranquillising mush that often passes for fiction, the strength of this work is in its tonal bleakness.