David Keenan

David Keenan’s second novel plunges us into the dark night of Belfast in the 1970s: an era of military terrorism and sectarian violence, occult visions and religious intensity. Sammy and his friends enjoy drinking, wearing sharp clothes and the songs of Perry Como, and are uncompromising in what they’ll do to achieve their dream of a Free State. Through modernist prose, roughhouse vernacular and hallucinatory humour, this novel establishes David Keenan as a fearless literary stylist.

David Keenan grew up in Airdrie in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is the author of England’s Hidden Reverse and a senior critic at The Wire. His debut novel, This Is Memorial Device, was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn and Collyer Bristow Prizes and was a Book of the Month for Waterstones, Rough Trade and Caught by the River.