RaveTimes Literary Supplement (UK)Very much a working-class novel, in the sense of a novel that takes working-class representation seriously. But it is many other things too: an Irish novel, a Bildungsroman, a novel about the self-congratulatory failures of Northern Ireland’s political elite ... Perhaps the novel’s chief strength is its sharp deconstruction of toxic masculinity. Throughout the novel Sean is haunted by an assault he committed on a night out, and, in his belated rejection of machismo’s self-annihilating ideal, he comes to learn that happiness can be achieved through tenderness and the pursuit of creativity.
