For The Good Times

Review Outstanding: phantasmagoric, high-octane, hilarious and horrific. -- Wendy Erskine ― Irish Times Books of the Year A gasp-inducing thrill of a ride. ― i independent An exhilarating novel, burning with rage, danger and dark humour. ― Literary Review Remarkable . . . demented brilliance. ― Scotland on Sunday Fantastic . . . Keenan crawls inside history, heading straight to the heart of darkness . . . An extraordinary tale. -- Suzanne Moore ― New Statesman This is visionary fiction, occult in intent, brilliant in execution. -- Eoin McNamee ― Irish Times A frenzy of Scorsesean gore, paranoia and debasement with a surrealist edge . . . in practically every crackling line of tough, trippy and guiltily laugh-out-loud funny prose. ― Scotsman Brilliant . . . One of the most strikingly written novels I have read for a long time. ― Sunday Times Stayed with me since I read it . . . a journey into the shattered sound of the voices of damned males hollowing from a bottomless well ― New Statesman 'Books of the Year' Product Description WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE AWARD 2020 From the author of This Is Memorial Device. 'A gasp-inducing thrill of a ride.' i Independent 'An exhilarating novel, burning with rage, danger and dark humour.' Literary Review 'Remarkable . . . demented brilliance.' Scotland on Sunday Belfast, 1970s: Sammy and his three friends live in an impoverished area of the city that has become the epicentre of a country seemingly intent on cannibalising itself. They love sharp clothes, a good drink, and the songs of Perry Como, whose commitment to clean living holds up a dissonant mirror to their own attempts to rise above their circumstances. They dream of a Free State, and their methods for achieving this are uncompromising. But For the Good Times is not just a novel about the IRA. It is about the heartbreak and devastation that commitment to 'the cause' can bring; of violence and betrayal, breakdown and rebirth. Book Description Award-winning author David Keenan's second novel plunges the reader into the dark night of Belfast in the 1970s: an era of military terror and sectarian violence, of occult visions and religious intensity. About the Author David Keenan is the author of England's Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underworld and a senior critic on The Wire.