book cover of Down to the Dirt
 

Down to the Dirt

(2004)
A novel by

 
 
The spirit of Salinger's troubled Holden Caulfield lives within the train-wreck teen at the center of this flip, chill, bastard of a novel by Joel Hynes. Keith Kavanagh lost his virginity at age thirteen to a woman twice his age; he met his girlfriend Natasha while pissing on the hood of her father's truck; he may have almost burned down the north side of the Cove, his hometown.

Following hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-ticket hooligan Keith - along with Natasha and best friend Andy - from the kitchens and basements of the Cove to the nighttime bars and alleys of the big city, this is a stark and edgy chronicle of violence, drugs, sex, and astonishingly funny black humor among the young and dispossessed. Crisply written in the gritty vernacular that brings Keith Kavanagh's voice memorably alive, this novel marks the emergence of a powerful presence in contemporary fiction.


Genre: Literary Fiction

Praise for this book

"A great novel that never surrenders to peace of mind." - Dermot Healy


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