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Let him judge for himself if he's the man he wanted to be. Or he'll be digging his chin in the dirt again.
He has escaped from the same deserted island where Vanessa came to repent in the balladic prose of Water, but he cannot shake the shackles in his mind. He still feels his hillbilly origins, his father's dislike and his friend's contempt, but not even the toe of a pair of first-class kicks can put that much pressure in the ground. What's more, now Evan Keogh, as Ireland's top £5 million footballer - masquerading with a designer lifestyle and a handsome innocent face - is in high-profile trouble. He'll be answering in court for complicity in the rape of a groupie, which in his case is quite absurd. As a gay man, he always got along with women, and as a consequence he was considered effeminate by those around him. He didn't really want to make a living by pissing in the pussy and would have liked to become a painter, but... circumstances were against him. So if everything can be blamed on fate...
Another of the author's elaborate mourning stories, on the border between a novella and a novel, is framed by a courtroom drama, regularly interspersed with a dive into the protagonist's memories. It soon becomes apparent that Evan is not nearly as much of a prima donna as his teammate Robbie, with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love, and who, along with his entire extended family, is forcing him to perjure himself. It is far from certain, however, whether the two refused to accept the girl's "no" as a rejection, or whether they are facing a wily gold digger. Although the trial before the jury offers twist after twist, not unlike Grisham's, one thing is clear: Caste intolerance and the cultivated hypocrisy of the British take a thousand forms. It is guaranteed to destroy them all, whereas love - that for one's neighbour - has only one face. Pure, selfless, no strings attached. But if Evan has been shaken in his feelings by the more powerful, will he finally decide for himself? In the second part of the tetralogy of the elements, the arrow of Boyne's moral compass is aimed at the immeasurable power of the earth. It will reliably pull us back and determine the level of guilt. Published in co-edition with Slovart Publishing House.
They wrote about the book:
The second voice in a quartet of subtly interwoven traumas of the inhabitants of an unassuming Irish island belongs to a young man who made it all the way from there to the courtroom via a league club. It will take a lot more hard work for him to survive a violent story, of which there are unfortunately hundreds outside the tabloids.
- The Guardian
Although it is a small book, almost for one sitting, it shows countless prejudices. From the skill with which the amorous adventures of girls can be publicly condemned, to reflections on how much the behaviour of philanderers has been influenced by hypocritical fathers. Perfect stuff for a reading club, just long enough so that nothing gets overlooked in a discussion of the crookedness of ethics.
- The Irish Times
A riveting and compelling portrait of a lonely young man with a character flaw (...) that it is never too late to correct.
- Daily Mail
John Boyne
(* 1971) A BA in English from Trinity College in his native Dublin, he further cultivated his interests in MA creative writing courses at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, which have produced writers of the stature of Angela Carter, Ian McEwan and Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. He gained his journalistic spurs in the culture section of The Irish Times and was introduced as a writer with his novel The Thief of Time (2000; Thief of Time). However, it was not until his first book for young people that he made his mark on the international scene: thanks to the concentric elegy The Boy in Striped Pyjamas (2006, no. 2008), which was awarded the 2007 Heinemann Peace Prize and became the basis for Mark Herman's film of the same name. He later developed the dilemmas and residues of the Nazi and Holocaust periods in its free sequel Before You Can't Run Away (no. 2023) or in the "Mann" coming-of-age novel The Boy at the Top of the Mountain (no. 2017). Numerous other translations of his twenty-five works - mostly published in this country under the Slovart banner - also document the writer's genre boom. The author follows the leitmotif of defending outsiders in plots ranging from Victorian-style ghost stories (In This Haunted House, no. 2016) to the image of the tragic misuse of social networks in The Echo Chamber (no. 2022). The worldwide acclaim of John Boyne's writing is reflected in translations into 50 languages, making him the most sought-after Irish novelist today. The latest work by a writer who, as a gay man in conservative Catholic Ireland, has championed the rights of LGBT+ minorities (My Brother's Name is Jessica) and others outside the majority spectrum (Barnaby Brocket's Cromoby's Pilgrimage) is an impressive tetralogy, in which he and his characters, undergoing a major life crisis, bow to the majesty of the elements. After his previously published prose works Water (2023), Earth (2024, both no. 2025) and Fire (2024; nr. is being prepared), Air will be released.
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| Code: | AK1I172 |