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Fun and Games
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By: John Patrick McHugh
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: April 2025
Pages: 395
Language: English
Available as: Hardback, Paperback, Ebook, Audio
On sale at:
ISBN-13: 9780008517366
ASIN: B0DHV3FZPF

A stunning debut novel following a teenage boy as he comes of age on the west coast of Ireland, from the author of the acclaimed story collection Pure Gold. Seventeen-year-old John Masterson has no idea what he wants. It’s his last summer on the small island where he has grown up and he should be enjoying the weeks until his exam results come through. Instead, he’s working mind-numbing shifts at the local hotel and trying to keep his head down after his mother’s nude sext to another man was leaked to the whole island. As John joins the local senior football team, gets caught up in fights and parties, and embarks on a tentative relationship with his slightly older co-worker Amber that he feels both proud and ashamed of, he can almost pretend that this summer will last forever. But soon John must face up to the choices before him: to stay or leave, to stand out or fit in, and whether to love and let himself be loved, despite or perhaps because of, the flaws that make us all human. Fun and Games is a darkly comic, beautifully crafted debut novel that is full of feeling both harsh and tender. It takes in social class and its firm borders, manhood and its frailties, family and, of course, love.

Review

The Guardian Review: https://shorturl.at/5NocP

Other Books From this Author

  • 3 Mar 2021 - New Island Books

    Pure Gold

    By John Patrick McHugh

    Two boys set fires while their worlds fall apart. A couple drive out to the hills in a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. A horse crashes a house party. Set on an imagined island off the west c...

  • 10 Feb 2021 - New Island Books

    Pure Gold

    By John Patrick McHugh

    Set on an imagined island off the west coast of Ireland, John Patrick McHugh’s debut collection of stories conjures a complete and varied cast of characters – some lost, some lonely, many dreaming...

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