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Imprint: Jonathan Cape
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Published: 15/10/2020
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ISBN: 9781787332270
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Length: 336 Pages
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Dimensions: 240mm x 32mm x 162mm
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Weight: 555g
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RRP: £18.99
A TIMES, GUARDIAN AND i BEST BOOK FOR AUTUMN
'A profound examination of friendship, romantic confusion and mortality' John Boyne
One summer's evening, two men meet up in a Dublin restaurant.
Old friends, now married and with grown-up children, their lives have taken seemingly similar paths. But Joe has a secret he has to tell Davy, and Davy, a grief he wants to keep from Joe. Both are not the men they used to be.
Neither Davy nor Joe know what the night has in store, but as two pints turns to three, then five, and the men set out to revisit the haunts of their youth, the ghosts of Dublin entwine around them. Their first buoyant forays into adulthood, the pubs, the parties, broken hearts and bungled affairs, as well as the memories of what eventually drove them apart.
As the two friends try to reconcile their versions of the past over the course of one night, Love offers up a delightfully comic, yet moving portrait of the many forms love can take throughout our lives.
'There's beauty and compassion in Doyle's sculpted, spare writing... Love is a reminder that its author is one to treasure' Economist
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Imprint: Jonathan Cape
-
Published: 15/10/2020
-
ISBN: 9781787332270
-
Length: 336 Pages
-
Dimensions: 240mm x 32mm x 162mm
-
Weight: 555g
-
RRP: £18.99
Reviews
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Doyle is justly renowned for his whip-smart dialogue, which combines salty humour and the loving use of local vernacular... And there is beauty and compassion in Mr Doyle's sculpted, spare writing. Among all the banter and gags he manages to articulate feelings that are rarely expressed so fittingly. Whether it is describing the agonising death of an elderly parent, or evoking the euphoria of an unlikely late-life passion, Love is a reminder that its author is one to treasure.
Economist
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Here is a paean to all things Irish. Fans of [Doyle] will be glad to follow old mates Davy and Joe through a pub crawl that is both elegiac and hilarious.
Washington Post
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This witty, satisfying novel about male friendship, aging, and guilt from Doyle dramatizes language's inadequacies when it comes to affairs of the heart... The two men are nothing if not good company. By closing time, Doyle has focused the novel's rambling energy into an elegiac and sobering climax. This one is a winner.
Publisher's Weekly
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This story, with its beer-inspired and home-brewed philosophy, its funny and painful moments, is about love...and the remembrance of love between friends, lovers, and family... Doyle's narrative style is fast-paced and deceptively easy to read... [dialogue] goes down as smoothly as gulps of beer... [A] brilliant two-character story.
Boston Globe
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Love isn't so much about what happens, or happened once upon a time, as it is about the mystically inaccurate nature of language... Doyle puts feeling first in this novel by putting it last, in the final pages...in the end, you see that the sacred world of the two friends was lurking in all that preceded this final scene, and concealing itself so successfully that they themselves did not realize how much they cared for each other.
The New York Times Book Review
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Doyle's fast-paced, dialogue-driven style is so real it feels like you're eavesdropping on the conversation. He captures the heartbreak and humour of long-term friendship exceptionally and ends the book with a tenderness that will take your breath away. It's wonderful.
Luxe
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Love by Roddy Doyle weaves memory and fiction as two childhood friends reunite over pints and revisit the vagaries of their youth. Read it if you cry-laughed through The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe and tittered at Steve Coogan's The Trip.
Irish Tatler
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With each new novel, Roddy Doyle’s work grows deeper and more contemplative. Love is a profound examination of friendship, romantic confusion and mortality
John Boyne
