City of Bohane

By: Kevin Barry

Narrated by: Kevin Barry

Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa First Novel Award. Winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award.

Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines.

There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and the eerie bogs of Big Nothin' that the city really lives.

For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there's trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight... And then there's his mother.

©2011 Kevin Barry (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd, Random House Audiobooks 2013

I have no idea what happened in this story

I think maybe this would be a great book if a read it instead of listening to it or if I understood the dialect. As it is I have no idea of what happened at all. If I had to write a book report on this I would get an F- On the bright side the narrator was pleasant to listen to.

Irish Darkness!

Great book. A little difficult to translate all the Irish slang, but the book is more about an overall feel. Loved it!

Glossary

Nice book, great reader. Lots of interesting Irish slang. I wish there was a glossary.

I enjoyed listening, mostly because of the reader and descriptions of people and places, but was a bit disappointed overall with the story.

Second listen, still a favorite

This probably isn’t every persons cup of tea but it’s sound literature in my opinion. I don’t typically go in for anything sci-fi or fantasy but I do enjoy Kevin Barry so I set aside my genre preferences and found it rewarding. The guy basically creates an entire dialect…. Anyway I loved it!

Perfect.

Tight story, lush language and a just as much (if not more) of a pleasure to listen to the author as to read his work. Pure outrageous love and sorrow. Rash revenge, delicious decadence and slow slides into madness and melancholy. And oh does this language linger. Bravo performance!