Ghosts and Lightning [Paperback]

An outstanding debut novel set in Dublin from a young Irish novelist that echoes the poignant, comical and gritty voices of Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, and Irvine Welsh.

Set in contemporary Dublin, this gritty, funny, and compelling novel is also a poignant exploration of grief, poverty, and love. Denny Cullen is just beginning his new life when he's called home to attend his mother's funeral. As he grieves for the loss of his mother, he must come to terms with a changed Dublin full of chaos and desperation, and he must ultimately decide what to keep, and what to leave behind. By turns hilarious and heart-breaking, Denny takes the reader on an unforgettable tour of twenty-first-century Dublin that is as irresistible as an expertly pulled pint of Guinness.

“Ghosts and Lightning is a powerful novel and Trevor Byrne is a very powerful writer. The narrator, Denny, and the others around him are great characters, often funny, sometimes frightening, always very human. I loved the dialogue and the rhythm of the book. It's a rough world, but carefully crafted. I could hear every word as I read.”—Roddy Doyle 

“Young Dubliner Trevor Byrne's voice crackles with energy and dark humour in a richly-evoked novel of Dublin family life.” —Irish Independent

Trevor Byrne writes so damn vividly about the working and the not-working classes of Dublin that I figure he’s spent a good part of his life lying around grimy houses amid cigarette ashes and ragged wrestling posters and spilled booze. Though Ghosts & Lightning is about grief and loss and survival, it’s also one of the funniest novels I’ve read in a long, long time. I hated to see it end. —Donald Ray Pollock, autlóž