Description
Book SynopsisKerrigan is writing a guidebook to the city of Copenhagen. Specifically, a guide to the city's drinking establishments of which there are over 1,500. Thus, it is a project potentially without end, and one with a certain amount of drunken numbness built into it. And that's the point: for Kerrigan, an American expat fleeing a terrible betrayal, has plenty he wants to forget. The only problem with his proposed project is his research associate, a voluptuous, green-eyed beauty who makes him tremble with forgotten desire.
Kerrigan in Copenhagen is both a love story and a Joycean romp through a magical city.
Trade ReviewThe essay, the guidebook, the love story, the comforting exchange of facts in a bewildering world of emotion – all are to be found in Thomas E. Kennedy’s Kerrigan in Copenhagen ... A spiralling exploration of alcohol, history, literature, art and jazz – and Kerrigan’s wounded psyche ... Undeniably smart, not least because it records the formation of a not-so-smart book. Coarse language plays off lyrical images and often stunning prose that twirls with the improvisations of the jazz musicians Kerrigan admires. It’s a swirl of dichotomies ... The quest for precision – perhaps an end to improvisation – drives the novel’s literally breathless second half ... Take the rough words of an educated man for what they’re worth: perhaps one more miracle tipping the scales that weigh the eternal question of love *
New York Times *
Falling Sideways is the finest novel I have read in many years. Thomas Kennedy is a true discovery, an author of rare intelligence and moral vision. Not least, the book is immensely compelling and beautifully written *
Alain de Botton *
As he slots together his narratives with masterly elegance, an intimate picture of local life is set before us … Kennedy’s finely calibrated observations make his cast eminently believable *
Independent on
Falling Sideways *
In its wisdom and empathy, in its understanding of the supreme importance of love, in its portrait of a strong man and its knowledge of the human soul in all its suffering, this is indeed a profound and exceptional work *
Joanna Briscoe, Guardian on In The Company of Angels *
The combination of subtle, beautiful prose and searingly painful realities make In the Company of Angels a story that lingers in the intellect as pervasively as in the heart. An astonishing, wise novel of our times *
Liz Jensen, author of The Ninth Life of Louis Drax and The Rapture *
