Eureka Street

Shocking and reassuring, visceral and alive with the majesty and mystery of the city, Eureka Street cements Wilson's reputation as one of the best writers around

A novel of ambitious scope and compelling power; it marks a new level of accomplishment in an already formidable writer

What is most striking is McLiam Wilson's range: tragedy, comedy, realism, absurdism and refreshing political insight. I am staggered by McLiam Wilson's scope

A sane, moving and often very funny satire directed against the establishment of terror. In the face of arbitrary, violent death and genocidal conflict, Wilson celebrates humanity...he offers us no solutions, but shows us our best and our worst with a redemptive tenderness and common sense

Robert McLiam Wilson was born in Belfast in 1964. He is the author of three novels, including Ripley Bogle, Manfred's Pain and Eureka Street. In 2003, he was named as one of Granta Magazine's "Best of Young British Novelists."

Eureka Street is a story of Belfast in the 1990s, six months before and after another ceasefire. It is the story of Chuckie Lurgan, fat, Protestant and poor, who suddenly becomes wealthy by various legal but immoral means; and of Jake Jackson, Catholic reformed tough guy, who has been abandoned by his English girlfriend and is looking for love. Meanwhile the strange letters 'OTG' start appearing on walls and paving stones throughout the city.

Robert McLiam Wilson

An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious

Probably one of the best Irish novels to have appared in the last decade. It goes straight for the jugular

The eponymous antihero of this splendid anti-coming-of-age novel is a classic Irish rogue: handsome, charming, astute, articulate, arrogant, irresponsible, passionate - above all, a chap who can make you laugh three times per page... Underneath all the wordplay, [Wilson] reveals with true eloquence the horrors of growing up during the Troubles

'I'm Ripley Bogle. I'm the prince of the pavements, I'm the Parkbench King and the cold winds of the outside permanently fleck my flesh. To come with me, you must brave the air and the wide, bare boredom. The vast outdoors is my house and hall. It's with purpose, fear and gratitude that I stalk the streets of the city.' 
 
As the scene shifts from the streets of London, to Oxford and Belfast, the tramp, Ripley Bogle, narrates his gripping and alarming story in which it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what is true and what is fiction.

Robert McLiam Wilson

Praise for Ripley Bogle

An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious

Probably one of the best Irish novels to have appared in the last decade. It goes straight for the jugular

The eponymous antihero of this splendid anti-coming-of-age novel is a classic Irish rogue: handsome, charming, astute, articulate, arrogant, irresponsible, passionate - above all, a chap who can make you laugh three ...

An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious

Probably one of the best Irish novels to have appared in the last decade. It goes straight for the jugular

The eponymous antihero of this splendid anti-coming-of-age novel is a classic Irish rogue: handsome, charming, astute, articulate, arrogant, irresponsible, passionate - above all, a chap who can make you laugh three ...

An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious

Probably one of the best Irish novels to have appared in the last decade. It goes straight for the jugular

The eponymous antihero of this splendid anti-coming-of-age novel is a classic Irish rogue: handsome, charming, astute, articulate, arrogant, irresponsible, passionate - above all, a chap who can make you laugh three ...

Books by Robert McLiam Wilson

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