David Keenan

Estamos en Irlanda del Norte en los convulsos años setenta. Sammy, Tommy, Barney y Patrick son cuatro amigos de Ardoyne, zona depauperada y de mayoría católica del norte de Belfast. También son «prov

Keenan ha escrito un retrato vivo y conmovedor de un movimiento legendario, cuyos ecos todavía resuenan en nuestros tiempos. A través de un fascinante conjunto de personajes que componen la escena pospunk en una desolada y pequeña ciudad llamada Airdrie, Keenan ha capturado las distintas facetas de uno de los movimientos musicales y sociales más importantes de las últimas décadas. Con esta ficticia indagación documental sobre un grupo igualmente ficticio, Keenan ha construido un retrato intenso, poético y conmovedor del movimiento postpunk. Un homenaje a la pasión y los sueños de juventud, a la eterna lucha de cada generación por encontrar su lugar en el mundo.

WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2019SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE AWARD 2020 From the author of This Is Memorial Device.A gasp-inducing thrill of a ride.i IndependentAn exhilarating novel, burning with rage, danger and dark humour.Literary ReviewRemarkable . . . demented brilliance.Scotland on SundayBelfast, 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.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017 ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE MONTH LRB BOOK OF THE WEEK CAUGHT BY THE RIVER BOOK OF THE MONTHSHORTLISTED FOR THE COLLYER BRISTOW PRIZE This Is Memorial Device, the debut novel by David Keenan, is a love letter to the small towns of Lanarkshire in the west of Scotland in the late 1970s and early 80s as they were temporarily transformed by the endless possibilities that came out of the freefall from punk rock. It follows a cast of misfits, drop-outs, small town visionaries and would-be artists and musicians through a period of time where anything seemed possible, a moment where art and the demands it made were as serious as your life. At its core is the story of Memorial Device, a mythic post-punk group that could have gone all the way were it not for the visionary excess and uncompromising bloody-minded belief that served to confirm them as underground legends. Written in a series of hallucinatory first-person eye-witness accounts that capture the prosaic madness of the time and place, heady with the magic of youth recalled, This Is Memorial Device combines the formal experimentation of David Foster Wallace at his peak circa Brief Interviews With Hideous Men with moments of delirious psychedelic modernism, laugh out loud bathos and tender poignancy.

Estamos en Irlanda del Norte en los convulsos años setenta. Sammy, Tommy, Barney y Patrick son cuatro amigos de Ardoyne, zona depauperada y de mayoría católica del norte de Belfast. También son «prov