About the Author:
Joel Hynes was born and raised in Calvert, Newfoundland. DOWN TO THE DIRT was originally published in Newfoundland, where it won the prestigious Percy Janes First Novel Award, and then throughout Canada, where it has received rave reviews. In addition to writing poetry, short stories, stage plays, and screenplays, Hynes is a professional actor and has performed in many feature films, short films, and plays.
From Publishers Weekly:
Rebellious adolescents are pretty much the same the world over, a point borne out by Newfoundland-born Hynes's debut about growing up in a small town in Canada's easternmost province: his teenage characters get high, have sex, and insult and outrage the adults around them. True, they speak a Celtic-tinged dialect (which Hynes captures masterfully), and they commit their minor social crimes in an isolated, rural setting that amplifies their discontent. Hynes's antihero is Keith Kavanagh, a hard-drinking bad boy ("a bit of a savage," his best friend Andy admits), who strives in self-destructive ways for love and respect. Keith's clipped but evocative narration trades off with the similarly poetic, snappish, adolescent narration by Andy and Keith's girlfriend, Natasha. The self-contained chapters read almost like short stories: the birth of Andy and Keith's friendship; Keith's drug-addled killing of a sick cat; a run-in between Natasha and her father over a sex toy. Raunchy, humorous and energetic, Hynes's novel engrosses, but never truly surprises: the author owes a large debt to Holden Caulfield for Keith's interior monologues and consistent attacks on hypocrisy. But it's a gritty, moving portrait of growing up—or trying to, anyway. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.