Kevin Power's Blog

Over at the excellent Honest Ulsterman, I have a short piece about how one goes about writing a sentence in a work of fiction. Readable here, should you fancy it.

For The Stinging Fly, I wrote a long piece using Megan Nolan’s novel Acts of Desperation (Cape) as the springboard for some thoughts about novels and literary criticism. Readable here, should you be in the mood for such a thing.

For yesterday’s Sunday Independent, I wrote a piece about fatherhood and writing, which you can read here.

For The Sunday Times (Ireland), I wrote about Louise Nealon’s debut novel Snowflake (Manilla Press).

For the Sunday Independent, I wrote about A Vision of the World: Selected Stories (Vintage) by John Cheever.

And for the new issue of Dublin Review of Books, I wrote about Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (Allen Lane).

For the academic journal Society, I wrote about Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists (2016) and Humankind: A Hopeful History (2019). You can read a PDF of the article here.

In the new issue of The Mailer Review, I have a journal article about Mailer’s 1967 theatrical adaptation of his third novel, The Deer Park.

For Saturday’s Irish Independent, I wrote about Lucy Caldwell’s new collection of short stories, Intimacies (Faber).

Wednesday of last week, I wrote a piece for The Irish Times about why my second novel took so long to appear. Do have a read, if you fancy it.

And this weekend, the extraordinary news that White City debuted at number 2 on the Irish Times Bestseller List. A huge thank you to everyone who bought the book.

You can order White City from Amazon here.

“As if Martin Amis in his more wickedly funny moments had decided that Monkstown Central was the Year Zero of his fiction […] there’s a powerful social conscience at work here […] An extremely funny book […] Kevin Power shows his chops as a proper heavyweight novelist. Unequivocally one of the most purely enjoyable books, in the classic-novel sense […] a zinger on every page.” Peter Murphy, Arena (RTE Radio 1)

“I can’t recommend it enough. It’s often hilariously funny but it’s also a sharp and smart dissection of contemporary materialism.”  – John Boyne, author of The Heart’s Invisible Furies

“Funny, and gorgeously written, and just relentlessly entertaining” – Mark O’Connell, author of To Be a Machine and Notes from an Apocalypse

‘The kind of novel that makes writers jealous and readers cancel all their plans to finish it. As a commentary on the classless contemporary upper class, it’s cutting and hilarious; as a portrait of the artist as a young man waylaid by his membership in that class, it’s profound, unpretentious, unapologetically intelligent, and, again, really hilarious’  — Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts

‘White City is both riotous rant and thoughtful coming-of-age tale… capacious and comic… with his well-established fluency with ideas and flair for exhilarating language, [Power] has made a tremendously enjoyable and impressive novel: sharp, current, comic, humane and satisfyingly constructed’ – Giles Newington, Dublin Review of Books

‘White City is a dark, hilarious and emotionally profound study of the toxic effects of greed and entitlement. Also, a story brilliantly and movingly told. Couldn’t stop reading it. Will read it again’  — Ed O’Loughlin, author of Not Untrue and Not Unkind

‘This is part thriller but mostly a look at what it means to grow up… full of ridiculously beautiful, polished, & often scathing sentences. This novel is pleasing on so many levels, both intellectually & emotionally… You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… Read it, read it, read it’  — Claire Hennessy, author, editor & publisher at Banshee Press

‘A fast-paced and wickedly funny novel. Hugely entertaining. White City grabbed me from the opening pages and didn’t let go’  — Danielle McLaughlin, author of The Art of Falling

‘With the brilliant Bad Day in Blackrock back in 2008, Kevin Power more than earned his standing as one of our most prodigious talents. It’s been a while, and anticipation for new work has been high, but White City – wild and beautiful, a whole addictive and breathlessly compelling world squeezed between these covers – has been worth every minute of the wait. A magnificent novel from a writer who is soaring to the most spectacular heights’ — Billy O’Callaghan, author of Life Sentences

‘Outstanding second novel… A brilliantly entertaining novel that is profound in the most unexpected ways. Power is that rarity, a genuinely funny novelist… Yet all the more remarkable is Power’s handling of tone: this novel moves effortlessly between humour and sincerity; it is steeped in empathy and raw anger’  ― Literary Review

‘Worth the wait… Narrative twists and turns keep the reader turning the page, but Power is also a master of striking imagery, with which he threads his text’  ― Irish Independent

‘White City is brilliant on the high-octane vacuity of Ireland’s rentier class. Power’s trademark shimmering prose counterpoints a driving narrative… Brilliant’  — Eoin McNamee, author of Resurrection Man and The Blue Tango

You can buy the book from Amazon here.

For The Stinging Fly, I wrote about Adam Curtis’s new six-part BBC iPlayer series, Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World. Readable here, should you fancy it.