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Lovely
Successful, happy, rich, healthy, well-dressed, well-read, well-regarded and well-mannered, Aaron Gunn believes there's nothing he couldn't do or have if he really set his mind to it. Only the great-love-of-his-life has so far eluded him. So, at an acid party in Goa, he allows himself to fall in love at first sight. But out of a bond formed from attraction and need grows a dangerous obsession.
184 pages, capa mole
First published January 1, 1996
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19 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 14, 2020
This is an electric read. It’s brutal, sad, witty, and uncompromising.
Aaron is happy, rich, healthy, well-read, well-regarded and well-mannered. He believes the world is his oyster; that nothing is unavailable to him. Then he meets Nick at a party in Goa. Nick is shrewd and manipulative. Aaron falls in love with him. Be careful what you wish for! Aaron becomes obsessed with Nick. Aaron’s friends warn him about how dangerous Nick is, but Aaron will not be told.
Aaron’s sister Susan can’t abide Nick. She asks them to spend time with her one evening and Nick objects as he doesn’t want to miss Corrie ( Coronation Street). The differences between the lives of working class crass Nick and middle class cultured Aaron are glaring. “Do you watch all the soaps? Susan enquired, in the sort of regal voice that’s generally chanelled down the nose.”
Aaron discloses a much guarded terrible secret from childhood to Nick. He expects understanding. Instead he gets appallingly moralistic judgment from Nick. This relationship is a runaway train.
This is a love story with a difference. It’s both hopeful and hopeless. It’s very well written, and I’d highly recommend it.
Aaron is happy, rich, healthy, well-read, well-regarded and well-mannered. He believes the world is his oyster; that nothing is unavailable to him. Then he meets Nick at a party in Goa. Nick is shrewd and manipulative. Aaron falls in love with him. Be careful what you wish for! Aaron becomes obsessed with Nick. Aaron’s friends warn him about how dangerous Nick is, but Aaron will not be told.
Aaron’s sister Susan can’t abide Nick. She asks them to spend time with her one evening and Nick objects as he doesn’t want to miss Corrie ( Coronation Street). The differences between the lives of working class crass Nick and middle class cultured Aaron are glaring. “Do you watch all the soaps? Susan enquired, in the sort of regal voice that’s generally chanelled down the nose.”
Aaron discloses a much guarded terrible secret from childhood to Nick. He expects understanding. Instead he gets appallingly moralistic judgment from Nick. This relationship is a runaway train.
This is a love story with a difference. It’s both hopeful and hopeless. It’s very well written, and I’d highly recommend it.
March 2, 2025
This is the fifth novel by Frank Ronan I have read and loved. I am not going to repeat what it is about, that is what GR and amazon and similar sites are for. I am going to tell you why you need to read this novel - because it is about love, and what monstrous all consuming nightmare love can be. Maybe it resonates so strongly for me because I am one of those who have nearly been destroyed by love. But it is love that is at the centre of this novel and if you doubt me listen to some of the praise he has attracted:
"Ronan is as gifted as anyone from his generation, probably even from the next one up. His prose, understated and fluid, provides consistent and enormous pleasure; his exposures of the human heart are performed with a surgeon's skill and patience." Nick Hornby in The Sunday Times
"Confident and powerful" The Times Literary Supplement
"A male Irish author who understands love...Frank Ronan has clarity of style and sharpness of vision that make him an anatomist of feeling. He is a Stubbs of the page." The Times
"Few of his peers can match him when he writes, without acerbic adornment of love, especially between men." The Independent
"A relentlessly honest, quirky and exciting writer." The Daily Mail
"Wholly original...acutely observant of marriage, sex and human hopelessness." Daily Telegraph
What could I say to match that sort of praise? Ignore any reviews on GR, they all miss the point and in some cases are factually inaccurate. This is a novel of love as doomed Anna Karenina's and a train wreck of a doomed life as inescapable as in 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens.
"Ronan is as gifted as anyone from his generation, probably even from the next one up. His prose, understated and fluid, provides consistent and enormous pleasure; his exposures of the human heart are performed with a surgeon's skill and patience." Nick Hornby in The Sunday Times
"Confident and powerful" The Times Literary Supplement
"A male Irish author who understands love...Frank Ronan has clarity of style and sharpness of vision that make him an anatomist of feeling. He is a Stubbs of the page." The Times
"Few of his peers can match him when he writes, without acerbic adornment of love, especially between men." The Independent
"A relentlessly honest, quirky and exciting writer." The Daily Mail
"Wholly original...acutely observant of marriage, sex and human hopelessness." Daily Telegraph
What could I say to match that sort of praise? Ignore any reviews on GR, they all miss the point and in some cases are factually inaccurate. This is a novel of love as doomed Anna Karenina's and a train wreck of a doomed life as inescapable as in 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens.
February 16, 2014
A short novel by one of Ireland's best writers, Lovely examines the abject horror of true love. The romance between Aaron and Nick is unconvincing from the start: Aaron is achingly middle class and quite naive, while quick-witted, streetwise Nick soon sees that he's on to a good thing. We're put in the position of their mutual friends, who can clearly see that its going to end end in tears but are powerless to stop it because it's true love. The disintegration of the relationship is chronicled in achingly authentic detail.
May 26, 2008
É o segundo livro que não me agradou deste autor. Coitado, ele não pode ser perfeito. =)
Achei a história demasiado monótona e repetitiva.
Achei a história demasiado monótona e repetitiva.
January 16, 2011
Actually I couldn't finish this one... Not my cup of tea at all.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews