From the Inside Flap:
A Cambridge dropout turned penniless drifter, the unforgettable Ripley Bogle takes us through the underbelly of London and into the surreal world of a vagabond. But Bogle is not your average bum. With a razor-sharp intellect, prodigious powers of perception, and better-than-average appearance ("Most movie stars would give their false back teeth for the kind of lived-in look that I possess"), Bogle careens through the wild streets of homelessness and Irish identity, all the while regaling us with the tale of his ragged Belfast past--and the events that led up to his extraordinary existence.
In a brilliant coupling of sardonic, self-deprecating wit and the lush lyricism of a poet, Robert McLiam Wilson brings us a fiercely modern character with an old soul. Imbued with a grace that is thoroughly at odds with his squalid world, Ripley Bogle gnaws at the fringes of society and skewers its fat heart. The result is a hilarious, unexpectedly touching novel that is destined to become a classic.
From the Back Cover:
"An astonishing performance, fluent, profound, angry. It made me laugh; it made me think; it made me envious."
--Irish Times (Dublin)
"RIPLEY BOGLE IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST IRISH NOVELS TO HAVE APPEARED IN THE LAST DECADE. IT GOES STRAIGHT FOR THE JUGULAR."
--Times (London)
"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. . . . Wilson masters even the strongest, most disparate influences (among them Rabelais, Sterne, Joyce, Beckett, Pynchon, the gonzo journalists), invents a portmanteau language of his own and, underneath all the wordplay, reveals with true eloquence the horrors of growing up during the Troubles."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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