Rockadoon Shore

Rockadoon Shore is terrific. It's full of surprises and sharp writing, great belts of dialogue, and a gang of characters who manage to be likeable and unlikeable, clever and thick, loud and vulnerable, entertaining and very, very real * Roddy Doyle *
Fresh in its unpredictability . . . gutsy and ambitious * Guardian *
Crackling with wit and fine writing . . . An exuberant dispatch from the front line of youthful narcissism and despair * Mail on Sunday *
Rockadoon Shore, a saga about young people traversing the early years of adulthood and the decisions we make in life, is very much built to fit into the Irish literary-fiction domain where Donal Ryan and Lisa McInerney dwell * Irish Sunday Independent *
Think early Big Brother meets Friends, with a sprinkling of fish-out-of-water countryside farce à la Withnail & I . . . it hints at a keen and socially attentive writerly sensibility, which will hopefully be more expansively showcased in due course * Irish Times *
Gleeson is particularly good at skewering the unspoken tensions between his characters as the weekend falls apart spectacularly . . . This is an uncomfortable read that's like being in a slow, but mesmerising, train crash * Daily Mail *
Boisterous and energetic * Irish Independent *
Gleeson has energy and enthusiasm; he is a talent to watch * Sunday Business Post *
Rory Gleeson brilliantly nails the self-obsession of the young and entitled in this sharply observed tale of sex, drugs and Rockadoon Shore. A brand new and welcome voice speaking for the disenchanted and disaffected * Liz Nugent *
Fierce, funny, vivid, and compelling from the first line. Rory Gleeson is one of the most exciting Irish storytellers to have emerged in years * Gavin Corbett *
Rory Gleeson's debut novel reads like A Midsummer Night's Dream by way of Trainspotting, all moonlight and MDMA . . . Savage comedy and inevitable tragedy are unflinchingly and dauntlessly intermingled in this impressive debut, which has a flawless sense of place * Sunday Times *
Sharply funny * Sunday Express *
Gleeson is in fact remarkable not for his voice but for his voices: among other things, Rockadoon Shore is an accomplished act of ventriloquism. Gleeson giving the narrative reins to each of his characters in turn and thus extending his and our sympathy towards them all * Times Literary Supplement *