Robert McLiam Wilson Ordine dei libri

In a city blasted by years of force and fury, but momentarily stilled by a cease-fire, two unlikely friends search for that most human of needs: love. But of course, a night of lust will do. Jake Jackson and Chuckie Lurgan--one Catholic, one Protestant--navigate their sectarian city and their nonsectarian friendship with wit and style. Chuckie, an unemployed dreamer, stumbles into bliss with a beautiful American who lives in Belfast. Jake, a repo man with the soul of a poet, can only manage a hilarious war of insults with a spitfire Republican whose Irish name, properly pronounced, sounds like someone choking.Brilliant, exuberant, and bitingly funny, Eureka Street introduces us to one of the finest young writers to emerge from Ireland in years.

Belfast, Irlanda del Nord, 1994. In una città ridotta a un campo di battaglia, Chuckie e Jake, protestante il primo, cattolico l’altro, sono legati da profonda amicizia. Chuckie, antieroe grasso e sempliciotto, riesce a compiere mirabolanti imprese commerciali grazie a progetti tanto ingegnosi quanto bizzarri. Jake, nonostante la sua scorza da duro, ha un’anima romantica e non cerca denaro e ricchezza ma un amore che gli riempia la vita. Sullo sfondo, i conflitti irrisolti del paese, che balzano brutalmente in primo piano quando un attentato sconvolge l’atmosfera farsesca che domina il racconto. Sarà la commedia della vita a cancellare il sangue, e a dominare di nuovo tra le pagine del romanzo saranno le vicende improbabili e sgangherate di Chuckie e Jake. Caso editoriale al tempo della sua uscita, Eureka Street è considerato ormai un classico della narrativa europea, romanzo corale, umoristico e insieme commovente, magistrale nel descrivere la vita quotidiana di una città dilaniata dalla guerra civile.

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.