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For the Good Times
Sammy and his three friends live in the Ardoyne, an impoverished, predominantly Catholic area of North Belfast that has become the epicentre of a country intent on cannibalising itself. They love sharp clothes, a good drink, and the songs of Perry Como - whose commitment to clean living holds up a dissonant mirror to their own attempts to rise above their circumstances. They dream of a Free State, and their methods for achieving this are uncompromising, even as they fully indulge in the spoils of war.
Keen to make a difference, the boys find themselves in the incongruous position of running a comic-book shop taken over by the IRA. Their clandestine activities belong in the x-rated pages of graphic fiction: burglary, blackmail, extortion, torture, and murder - and they become transfixed by the initiatory possibilities of free-reign criminality.
But when punk rock arrives and the hard edge of the decade starts to reveal its true paranoid colours, Sammy finds himself increasingly isolated, especially after bizarre and gruesome away days in Glasgow and London. Camaraderie and loyalty is the fuel of a terrorist cell. When those virtues prove faulty, the game is up - and Sammy's world starts to shrink as he is assaulted by terrifying visions.
For the Good Times shouts and sings with visionary depth and power. It is not just a book about the IRA, but an exploration of what it means to 'go rogue', of the heartbreak and devastation that commitment to 'the cause' can engender, of ideas of martyrdom, fatherhood, and self-sacrifice. It unpacks any dewy-eyed romance associated with the Troubles while re-visioning it as a time of psychological and spiritual intensity where the nature of day-to-day reality itself was up for grabs. And through a dizzying amalgam of modernist prose, roughhouse vernacular and hallucinatory Irish humour, it establishes David Keenan as one of our most fearless literary stylists.
Keen to make a difference, the boys find themselves in the incongruous position of running a comic-book shop taken over by the IRA. Their clandestine activities belong in the x-rated pages of graphic fiction: burglary, blackmail, extortion, torture, and murder - and they become transfixed by the initiatory possibilities of free-reign criminality.
But when punk rock arrives and the hard edge of the decade starts to reveal its true paranoid colours, Sammy finds himself increasingly isolated, especially after bizarre and gruesome away days in Glasgow and London. Camaraderie and loyalty is the fuel of a terrorist cell. When those virtues prove faulty, the game is up - and Sammy's world starts to shrink as he is assaulted by terrifying visions.
For the Good Times shouts and sings with visionary depth and power. It is not just a book about the IRA, but an exploration of what it means to 'go rogue', of the heartbreak and devastation that commitment to 'the cause' can engender, of ideas of martyrdom, fatherhood, and self-sacrifice. It unpacks any dewy-eyed romance associated with the Troubles while re-visioning it as a time of psychological and spiritual intensity where the nature of day-to-day reality itself was up for grabs. And through a dizzying amalgam of modernist prose, roughhouse vernacular and hallucinatory Irish humour, it establishes David Keenan as one of our most fearless literary stylists.
348 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2019
58 people are currently reading
2219 people want to read
About the author
David Keenan
26 books164 followersDavid Keenan is an author and critic based in Glasgow, Scotland. He has been a regular contributor to The Wire magazine for the past twenty years. His debut novel, This Is Memorial Device, was published by Faber in 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
April 21, 2019
Ferocious madness. Reminiscent of Irvine Welsh, Martin McDonagh, David Peace, Roddy Doyle, Alan Warner, and completely engaging for its entirety (although the comic book interludes probably serve well as a bit of a breather). Hilarious and bizarre and a bit trippy and certainly unmissable.
April 18, 2019
(4.5)
This book is one wild ride - violent and hallucinatory and elusive to define.
David Keenan writes like his mind is on fire, this feeling is further enhanced when you listen to him talk about the book in audio. In fact enjoyment of this novel may hinge on if you can get the rhythm of that speech in your head.
For the most part the narrative is propulsive, grabbing you up immediately in a Tarantinoesque action sequence. It interweaves a story of violent thuggery, with Irish jokes, reverence for Perry Como, a comic book side-story and digressions into what is Art. Yet that hardly seems to describe the experience of reading this.
The setting is Belfast in the 1970s ( the best decade that ever lived ), yet the blackly comic portrayal of violence begetting more violence, of young men enthral to their own toxic masculinity is a theme broadly applicable and not just to war zones. The deeply entrenched culture of violence is conveyed so well in this book, sons learning early how to throw a punch, children blithely recounting shocking acts of brutality. But what Keenan excels at is playing with the incongruity of these heinous acts existing alongside sentimentality, camaraderie, humour and love.
In a parallel to Anna Burns book Milkman Keenan also paints a picture of Belfast as a city feeding on itself, a dense claustrophobic atmosphere in which you question everything that is going on. Stylistically the two books could not be more different but there are some striking similarities.
There is ALOT going on in this book, it is almost manic, and it is one that would benefit from multiple readings. I had several head-scratching moments here (particularly in those comic book interludes ) and a couple of times the sex and violence tipped too far into gratuitous but even so on balance I think it worked and it is one I would hope to see Booker longlisted for 2019.
This book is one wild ride - violent and hallucinatory and elusive to define.
David Keenan writes like his mind is on fire, this feeling is further enhanced when you listen to him talk about the book in audio. In fact enjoyment of this novel may hinge on if you can get the rhythm of that speech in your head.
For the most part the narrative is propulsive, grabbing you up immediately in a Tarantinoesque action sequence. It interweaves a story of violent thuggery, with Irish jokes, reverence for Perry Como, a comic book side-story and digressions into what is Art. Yet that hardly seems to describe the experience of reading this.
The setting is Belfast in the 1970s ( the best decade that ever lived ), yet the blackly comic portrayal of violence begetting more violence, of young men enthral to their own toxic masculinity is a theme broadly applicable and not just to war zones. The deeply entrenched culture of violence is conveyed so well in this book, sons learning early how to throw a punch, children blithely recounting shocking acts of brutality. But what Keenan excels at is playing with the incongruity of these heinous acts existing alongside sentimentality, camaraderie, humour and love.
In a parallel to Anna Burns book Milkman Keenan also paints a picture of Belfast as a city feeding on itself, a dense claustrophobic atmosphere in which you question everything that is going on. Stylistically the two books could not be more different but there are some striking similarities.
There is ALOT going on in this book, it is almost manic, and it is one that would benefit from multiple readings. I had several head-scratching moments here (particularly in those comic book interludes ) and a couple of times the sex and violence tipped too far into gratuitous but even so on balance I think it worked and it is one I would hope to see Booker longlisted for 2019.
July 5, 2019
I don’t think I’ve read a better 2019 novel written in English. It’s that good. And I feel incompetent to review it. I just recommend to read it.
Here’s a taster in the form of one sentence from the novel. The characters are getting deeper into the IRA underworld infused with Aleister Crowley style occultism and witness something shocking in a basement. I’m putting it inside spoiler tags since it’s rather gruesome but gives you an idea of the style of the novel. But don’t be fooled: it’s also a laugh-out-loud funny novel. There are superheroes, comics, occultism, snakes, mirrors, masquerades, séances, Irish myths, music, everything.
Here’s a taster in the form of one sentence from the novel. The characters are getting deeper into the IRA underworld infused with Aleister Crowley style occultism and witness something shocking in a basement. I’m putting it inside spoiler tags since it’s rather gruesome but gives you an idea of the style of the novel. But don’t be fooled: it’s also a laugh-out-loud funny novel. There are superheroes, comics, occultism, snakes, mirrors, masquerades, séances, Irish myths, music, everything.
January 21, 2019
This was one of the most memorable visceral reading journeys I have ever been on. I feel like I've been on a very long night out with a charismatic crazy man. This book manages to do a lot of things simultaneously. It is horrific, it is hilarious, it is tender, it is strange. It rampages along uncontrollably and makes you feel dizzy and ill at ease at the possibility of the narrator taking you somewhere you might not want to go but then there are these great dreamlike interludes where the reader is held suspended and enraptured.
I think it is so rare to find a book where the reader is given an experience, where you are allowed to run the gamut of laughing your head off one moment then feeling terror or disgust or total confusion the next and then being scooped up again in the loveliness and comfort of nostalgia , friendship, love only to be taken back down again.
and the hand reaching out from behind the curtain.
I think it is so rare to find a book where the reader is given an experience, where you are allowed to run the gamut of laughing your head off one moment then feeling terror or disgust or total confusion the next and then being scooped up again in the loveliness and comfort of nostalgia , friendship, love only to be taken back down again.
and the hand reaching out from behind the curtain.
March 31, 2019
There is a problem at the heart of this book. The central characters are members of an active branch of the Provisional IRA (the Provos) in Belfast during the 1970s and 1980s. This is going to alienate a lot of people from the story that is being told, and that means that they will fail to learn the central message, which is that, if people feel that they are oppressed they will fight against it. If y6ou imagine that the characters are fighting the Nazis in occupied Europe then this ceases to be a problem. It is the fact that they are fighting the British army in Northern Ireland that is the problem. It is not even that David Keenan portrays them as sympathetic that is the difficulty, it is that he portrays them as human.
Another reason why people will not like the book is that the characters are foul-mouthed in the extreme. This, of course, is the language of the street in Belfast and elsewhere, but I have no doubt that some people will be upset by the words used. So, basically, if you are offended by the heroes being members of the Provos and the use of bad language simply do not even consider reading this book.
If, on the other hand, you are prepared to have your prejudices challenged and to rethink your beliefs then this is a must-read book. This is especially the case as some Brexiteers are prepared to plunge the people of Northern Ireland back into the morass from which they emerged with the Good Friday Agreement. Sammy, Tommy, Kathy and the others are not actually bad people. They have been trapped in the history of their communities and they have become murderers, prostitutes or simply insane because they cannot find a way out. The story is being told by Sammy and it recounts a dreadful tale of conflict and murder. There are reasons to doubt Sammy’s sanity because of his hallucinations. If they are that because it is very difficult to tell.
There are some things that are just bizarre. People have an obsession with Perry Como. There is no doubt that he had a beautiful voice but this is the 1970s. Then you realise that Sammy and his friends would have grown up at the end of the 1950s, and that is why they are so dismissive of hippies and punks. They are the previous generation, who tore up the seats in a Belfast cinema when Bill Haley was playing there.
This is not an easy book to read, but I think it is a necessary read. Any book that helps us to understand “the Troubles” in Ireland can only be helpful at this time. This is that book, and we need it badly.
Another reason why people will not like the book is that the characters are foul-mouthed in the extreme. This, of course, is the language of the street in Belfast and elsewhere, but I have no doubt that some people will be upset by the words used. So, basically, if you are offended by the heroes being members of the Provos and the use of bad language simply do not even consider reading this book.
If, on the other hand, you are prepared to have your prejudices challenged and to rethink your beliefs then this is a must-read book. This is especially the case as some Brexiteers are prepared to plunge the people of Northern Ireland back into the morass from which they emerged with the Good Friday Agreement. Sammy, Tommy, Kathy and the others are not actually bad people. They have been trapped in the history of their communities and they have become murderers, prostitutes or simply insane because they cannot find a way out. The story is being told by Sammy and it recounts a dreadful tale of conflict and murder. There are reasons to doubt Sammy’s sanity because of his hallucinations. If they are that because it is very difficult to tell.
There are some things that are just bizarre. People have an obsession with Perry Como. There is no doubt that he had a beautiful voice but this is the 1970s. Then you realise that Sammy and his friends would have grown up at the end of the 1950s, and that is why they are so dismissive of hippies and punks. They are the previous generation, who tore up the seats in a Belfast cinema when Bill Haley was playing there.
This is not an easy book to read, but I think it is a necessary read. Any book that helps us to understand “the Troubles” in Ireland can only be helpful at this time. This is that book, and we need it badly.
November 21, 2020
La visión desde dentro de uno de los grupos afines al IRA, en concreto el que les suministraba la "mano de obra" joven y armada para sus trabajos más sangrientos durante su época dorada de los años 80, no puede dejar indiferente a ningún lector.
Esos "buenos tiempos" que describe el título lo fueron para una juventud que en el Belfast de esos años no encontraba más futuro que la lucha armada, con una violencia física y psicológica fuera de toda medida. Está todo narrado en primera persona, con lo que todo te llega sin más filtros que los de uno de los protagonistas/supervivientes de esa vida, que parece de otro planeta pero que es de este, sin duda. No se trata de justificar nada, solo de contar cómo vivieron "los Chicos" esos años, con sus risas y sus malos tragos, su entrega total a su mundo, y el fin de ese mundo.
La narración está plagada de música, de drogas, de cine, de comic de superhéroes... y de sangre, dolor y de un sentido de la amistad visceral y sin fisuras. Ha tenido que ser durísimo crecer, y sobrevivir, en esa ciudad.
Y está muy bien escrita, aunque a mi me ha costado muchísimo terminarla por lo duro de algunos pasajes. Que remuevan las tripas no siempre gusta.
Esos "buenos tiempos" que describe el título lo fueron para una juventud que en el Belfast de esos años no encontraba más futuro que la lucha armada, con una violencia física y psicológica fuera de toda medida. Está todo narrado en primera persona, con lo que todo te llega sin más filtros que los de uno de los protagonistas/supervivientes de esa vida, que parece de otro planeta pero que es de este, sin duda. No se trata de justificar nada, solo de contar cómo vivieron "los Chicos" esos años, con sus risas y sus malos tragos, su entrega total a su mundo, y el fin de ese mundo.
La narración está plagada de música, de drogas, de cine, de comic de superhéroes... y de sangre, dolor y de un sentido de la amistad visceral y sin fisuras. Ha tenido que ser durísimo crecer, y sobrevivir, en esa ciudad.
Y está muy bien escrita, aunque a mi me ha costado muchísimo terminarla por lo duro de algunos pasajes. Que remuevan las tripas no siempre gusta.
March 5, 2023
Если бы Ирвин Уэлш написал «Славные Парни», то получилась бы эта книга.
Действительно, книга близка по духу и языку к Уэлшу и тут тоже история про молодых ребят гангстеров, что работают на «IRA» и наслаждаются безумной молодостью, но произведение также наполнено различными отсылками к гик-культуре, музыкальной сцене и реальным событиям происходившим во времена войны за самостоятельность Северной Ирландии.
«For The Good Times» – абсолютно безумный коктейль, что стоит попробовать каждому, кто хочет окунуться в безумие Ирландии 70-х годов.
Действительно, книга близка по духу и языку к Уэлшу и тут тоже история про молодых ребят гангстеров, что работают на «IRA» и наслаждаются безумной молодостью, но произведение также наполнено различными отсылками к гик-культуре, музыкальной сцене и реальным событиям происходившим во времена войны за самостоятельность Северной Ирландии.
«For The Good Times» – абсолютно безумный коктейль, что стоит попробовать каждому, кто хочет окунуться в безумие Ирландии 70-х годов.
May 13, 2019
Oh Boy. The writing in this one was something else. Probably one of the most violent books I’ve read, 1970’s Belfast was not a place I would’ve wanted to be. This felt like if Quentin Tarantino had directed Goodfellas....
December 24, 2019
Unforgettable. Weird and lyrical and awful and funny and disgusting and violent. Gonna go listen to some Perry Como.
Read
April 23, 2021If we're doing the Troubles again, might as well read something which manages to find the funny side, right? The filth and the bloodshed and the betrayal too, granted, but plenty of none-more-dark comedy along the way. Not least because our narrator is one of the ones doing well out of "the black fucking night of 1970s Northern Ireland, the best decade what ever lived". The times they are a-changing; Perry Como is belatedly giving way to Bob Marley, or maybe Dylan, they're not entirely clear on the distinction. Now there are radishes, and grass as in drugs, and even the IRA commanders are growing their hair. Soon, our hero and his mate have ended up running a comic and RPG shop, which they're convinced will be a massive money-spinner for the Cause; easy for the geek readers to think that here they have advance warning of a punchline that Keenan's litfic fans may not be expecting, but the project goes surprisingly well, financially at least. Except that soon reveries of superhuman powers and the sexy sword of Conan are joining the heretic theologies and general lads together bollocks that has broken up the narrative from the start. That things would end badly was implicit from the title, and the setting, but there's still a sense of it gradually sneaking up on you, until we're in incantatory evocations of a hidden history of horrors, straight out of David Peace. Except that Peace never had quite this knack for pivoting from the pain at the centre of the world to belly-laughs and back.
September 9, 2024
I heard about this book from a friend who found it in a used bookstore in far southern New Zealand, most of the way across the world from me. I’m surprised that was the first I’d heard. I’d think it would have been more of a literary event. Maybe it’s just too violent, say for people who have never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie.
This book is not without flaws, the biggest being that it’s a little too slick—I thought of it as Trainspotting Part 0.5: The Troubles—but it is worthwhile reading. It’s the story of how Sammy and his friends join the IRA in 1970’s Belfast (“the best decade that ever lived”) the way they might join a family business. The bit where a father tells his son to make something of himself, “get a paper route”, has more than a little in common with the “Choose Life” refrain from Trainspotting. Our characters love their neighborhood and their families but they’re not balaclava-wearing zealots, more like smooth hit men (“we could sell cheese to the French”) who appreciate Perry Como and a silk handkerchief. It’s violent but chummy, almost cozy in its sense of place and lifelong community. The violence ranges from casual workaday mayhem to a scene or two of intense, hallucinatory gore. The language of this book is stylish with lots of local flavor, flaring up away from reality as needed. The trippy prison scenes are particularly, effectively bonkers. Sometimes it’s too cool for itself, as in the annoying hipster-nerd subplot with the comic shop and the superheroes, but ok. The love-triangle subplot is weak, outshone by the bromance between Sammy and Tommy the charming psychopath with smiling Irish eyes (who, in one of the funniest scenes, can’t even get through his first orgy, in Glasgow where he’s supposed to be lying low, without setting off a bloodbath). This book does a lot to dispel romantic notions of the Troubles but nevertheless it sent me down a rabbit hole of reading, podcasts, and documentaries about that time. It wasn’t a waste.
This book is not without flaws, the biggest being that it’s a little too slick—I thought of it as Trainspotting Part 0.5: The Troubles—but it is worthwhile reading. It’s the story of how Sammy and his friends join the IRA in 1970’s Belfast (“the best decade that ever lived”) the way they might join a family business. The bit where a father tells his son to make something of himself, “get a paper route”, has more than a little in common with the “Choose Life” refrain from Trainspotting. Our characters love their neighborhood and their families but they’re not balaclava-wearing zealots, more like smooth hit men (“we could sell cheese to the French”) who appreciate Perry Como and a silk handkerchief. It’s violent but chummy, almost cozy in its sense of place and lifelong community. The violence ranges from casual workaday mayhem to a scene or two of intense, hallucinatory gore. The language of this book is stylish with lots of local flavor, flaring up away from reality as needed. The trippy prison scenes are particularly, effectively bonkers. Sometimes it’s too cool for itself, as in the annoying hipster-nerd subplot with the comic shop and the superheroes, but ok. The love-triangle subplot is weak, outshone by the bromance between Sammy and Tommy the charming psychopath with smiling Irish eyes (who, in one of the funniest scenes, can’t even get through his first orgy, in Glasgow where he’s supposed to be lying low, without setting off a bloodbath). This book does a lot to dispel romantic notions of the Troubles but nevertheless it sent me down a rabbit hole of reading, podcasts, and documentaries about that time. It wasn’t a waste.
March 11, 2019
Fictional account of The Troubles in Ireland, mid to late 70's, based on the author's upbringing. This is a great story by underground music critic David Keenan. It takes from the Goodfellas mob mentality template and writes around it with great engaging devices. For example, the fellas take over a comic book store, and the armed conflict suddenly takes a on a superhero narrative. The characters have that great teenage "shooting the shit" chemistry and a recurring theme is the juxtaposition between old and new world values. The emerging punk scene gets written in, as well as Sinatra and the titular Perry Como. There's that journalistic knack for quips and one-liners. There's the poetry of pain and confusion. There's religion, or rather, spiritual ambition? There's a little bit of romance, tenderness. I've been following Keenan's writing specifically because of his music criticism and he fulfills all the requirements you'd expect from someone commited to creativity and the search for new euphoria. A++
March 26, 2019
I loved Memorial Device - For The Good Times feels like an awkward second novel. Basically we have some lads who are into comics and laughs who've joined the IRA. First they take over a comic shop in Belfast, then they end up on the mainland plotting atrocities.
It was good, funny in parts and horrific in others. But basically, I didn't buy the characters and very specifically, I didn't buy Sammy, the main protagonist. The boys seemed to be driven neither by ideology nor by psychopathy. i just don't believe the Ra would have taken on such uncommitted, ill-disciplined jokers.
Sure there's some nice scene setting - Belfast and the Ardoyne in the 70s and some wonderful, biting humour. But the politics was done better in Milkman, and the humour was done better in The Fire Starters. For The Good Times does try to break out of the genre of Troubles novels, but in doing that it sort of becomes a parody of itself.
There have been worse Troubles novels (mostly by Americans) but this is far from the best. All this is made more disappointing when we know how well David Keenan can write and innovate from Memorial Device.
It was good, funny in parts and horrific in others. But basically, I didn't buy the characters and very specifically, I didn't buy Sammy, the main protagonist. The boys seemed to be driven neither by ideology nor by psychopathy. i just don't believe the Ra would have taken on such uncommitted, ill-disciplined jokers.
Sure there's some nice scene setting - Belfast and the Ardoyne in the 70s and some wonderful, biting humour. But the politics was done better in Milkman, and the humour was done better in The Fire Starters. For The Good Times does try to break out of the genre of Troubles novels, but in doing that it sort of becomes a parody of itself.
There have been worse Troubles novels (mostly by Americans) but this is far from the best. All this is made more disappointing when we know how well David Keenan can write and innovate from Memorial Device.
April 5, 2020
A very enjoyable one-off of a book for me. Everything about it is different and mostly very enjoyable. It is a story which follows the hero Sammy and his friends through the Troubles in the 60s and 70s mainly. They are members of the IRA and from Ardoyne, a staunchly republican area of Belfast. The tale contains many of the landmark 'happenings' of that time seen through the eyes of Sammy and his mates. It deals with their friendships, music culture, social life and general day to day lives in between the killings, bombings and maimings. Sounds a little weird? It is, but very good.
The tale is told through a mixture of craic and sparkling dialogue, a liberal sprinkling of 'Irish' jokes popping up at will and out of context and with a real empathy for the characters and the knife-edge lives they lead.
EXTRAORDINARY in the best way.
The tale is told through a mixture of craic and sparkling dialogue, a liberal sprinkling of 'Irish' jokes popping up at will and out of context and with a real empathy for the characters and the knife-edge lives they lead.
EXTRAORDINARY in the best way.
April 23, 2022
Los Chicos del IRA a finales de los años 70. Un libro duro, violento, también con pasajes divertidos, que ayuda a imaginarse los años más duros del conflicto entre música, drogas, amistades y traiciones.
Con una narrativa que mezcla oralidad desde una narración en primera persona, con pasajes de cómic y otros de abstracciones que, y es la mayor pega del libro, a ratos complican la lectura.
Con una narrativa que mezcla oralidad desde una narración en primera persona, con pasajes de cómic y otros de abstracciones que, y es la mayor pega del libro, a ratos complican la lectura.
February 16, 2022
I think I’m going to go 4.5 and round up because of how much I enjoyed parts of the novel. Literally laughed out loud several times – a rarity in my reading so for sheer entertainment value we get to 5. That said, it’s a bit of sympathy for the devil for me – I’m not a big fan of something like Man Bites Dog where there’s a black humor to a brutal killer – it’s a similar thing here, but more along the lines of the Sopranos. We know that Samuel is not a good guy, but something about the nonchalance of the violence (at parts) and even some of the discussions of Nazis hit wrong chords for me. But Keenan is not telling the story of educated, civil people – Samuel is a hitman who wears good clothes and loves Perry Como – you have to have the dark with the light in this story.
I see the Irvine Welsh/Trainspotting and Martin McDonagh/In Bruges comparisons – I would figure that Keenan would probably be irritated at that a bit but his total disregard of quotation marks and even dashes (Joyce, Gaddis) to indicate conversation really gives the book the feeling of spoken word. Something about this book and Keenan in particular made me want to watch/read interviews with him, and that rarely happens with writers for me, even with books I truly enjoy.
And while some sections are very grounded, relatively easy to comprehend – guys sitting around a comic shop talking about life – Keenan very successfully goes much more abstract at parts, especially towards the later sections where the world Samuel took for granted – as crazy and violent as it was – reveals itself to not be what he thought. Comic book alter egos dominate sections, along with silly jokes – which are also laugh out loud funny – and then these digressions all play into the visions and mystical sensibility of the later sections.
I felt Keenan when he gets into the deeper thematic concerns of the novel he’s at his most successful – This is Memorial Device also pulls off a similar feat. Chronicling the small town life and imbuing it with a complex LOVE – In both cases, there’s a sense of love for the characters and the place where his characters thrive, warts and all. Love to me is not the simplified Hollywood romantic comedy view of love which in most cases is about falling in love rather than maintaining love. And I know romantic comedies only have 100 minutes to tell their story and a meet-cute can be successfully told in 100 minutes. Keenan has 300+ pages to tell you a story. Love encompasses trials, flaws, arguments, confusion, laughs, tears – and there’s just something vibrant and alive about the experience of reading this book. I looked forward to reading it, even when some sections put me off. And I felt with this and This is Memorial Device that both are books I would return to in the future.
I see the Irvine Welsh/Trainspotting and Martin McDonagh/In Bruges comparisons – I would figure that Keenan would probably be irritated at that a bit but his total disregard of quotation marks and even dashes (Joyce, Gaddis) to indicate conversation really gives the book the feeling of spoken word. Something about this book and Keenan in particular made me want to watch/read interviews with him, and that rarely happens with writers for me, even with books I truly enjoy.
And while some sections are very grounded, relatively easy to comprehend – guys sitting around a comic shop talking about life – Keenan very successfully goes much more abstract at parts, especially towards the later sections where the world Samuel took for granted – as crazy and violent as it was – reveals itself to not be what he thought. Comic book alter egos dominate sections, along with silly jokes – which are also laugh out loud funny – and then these digressions all play into the visions and mystical sensibility of the later sections.
I felt Keenan when he gets into the deeper thematic concerns of the novel he’s at his most successful – This is Memorial Device also pulls off a similar feat. Chronicling the small town life and imbuing it with a complex LOVE – In both cases, there’s a sense of love for the characters and the place where his characters thrive, warts and all. Love to me is not the simplified Hollywood romantic comedy view of love which in most cases is about falling in love rather than maintaining love. And I know romantic comedies only have 100 minutes to tell their story and a meet-cute can be successfully told in 100 minutes. Keenan has 300+ pages to tell you a story. Love encompasses trials, flaws, arguments, confusion, laughs, tears – and there’s just something vibrant and alive about the experience of reading this book. I looked forward to reading it, even when some sections put me off. And I felt with this and This is Memorial Device that both are books I would return to in the future.
December 23, 2021
Impression from the first 20 or so pages was this was 'Trainspotters' transposed to Belfast, which meant tales of dark deeds in the service of the 'ra' would supplant the drug taking. The central characters aren't really developed to the point where you can distinguish one from the other, or get a sense as to why they are so devoted to one another. The general sense is that they live in a tumultuous world of assassinations and petty rivalries with ideals being limited to the sharpness of the suits they were wearing.
The device of latching on to Perry Como as the avatar of the values they considered most sacred is redolent of the Rick character in the 1980s sitcom 'The Young Ones' who had mistaken Cliff Richard as the embodiment of rock-and-roll rebellion, but not quite as funny second time round. Other aspects jar - the idea of Miracle Baby who can foresee the future, or the obsession with comic book super heroes seem contrived to allow Keenan to sketch a self-image of the central groups as characters in the Justice League or Avengers mold. That said I enjoyed the Irish jokes that appear through the story, and perhaps the point of these was to hint at the fact the whole of Belfast during the years of The Troubles was really just one big Irish joke.
The device of latching on to Perry Como as the avatar of the values they considered most sacred is redolent of the Rick character in the 1980s sitcom 'The Young Ones' who had mistaken Cliff Richard as the embodiment of rock-and-roll rebellion, but not quite as funny second time round. Other aspects jar - the idea of Miracle Baby who can foresee the future, or the obsession with comic book super heroes seem contrived to allow Keenan to sketch a self-image of the central groups as characters in the Justice League or Avengers mold. That said I enjoyed the Irish jokes that appear through the story, and perhaps the point of these was to hint at the fact the whole of Belfast during the years of The Troubles was really just one big Irish joke.
January 19, 2022
I have to be honest that after the first few pages of this book I was preparing to give up, something I rarely do, but I really struggled with the crypitic prose written in, as all the book is, a strong Irish dialect. However, I'm glad I persevered as the a story emerged from the mist. And the story was compelling, the exploits of young IRA operatives and their often horrifying exploits in the seventies and eighties. In fact, sometimes the exploits were so savage and brutal that I often cared less for these people but then, repeatedly, the sharp prose, wise cracks and constant idolisation of Perry Como would bring me round again. It became an easy read as I got my ear in to the language. Also, the book came in bitesize pieces: large gaps between the paragraphs, short chapters, ideal for a plodder like me. One thing that did bug me was the absence of any speech marks which frequently made it unclear if the text was speech and, if so, who was speaking. I know other authors do this, notably Will Self, but I don't like it when anyone it. Speech marks make understanding text easier and to leave them out is lazy and places a barrier between author and reader. Anyway, the plot twisted away towards an unexpected end and I was glad that I had stuck the course - the early pages were a one or two star but the rest was four star - so three star overall.
July 29, 2021
I'll be honest -- I wasn't ready for this book. I may have purchased it on a whim in an English bookstore in Bordeaux because I share a name with the author. Don't judge me.
In a year where I laughed unstoppably at Derry Girls and got lost in the political and conspiratorial webs of the IRA in the wonderful non-fiction Say Nothing , the violent and artsy and manic and in-your-face For The Good Times feels like the wild afterparty in my education about The Troubles. Irish jokes, comic books, death served fresh and raw, mysticism and Catholicism and terrorism and all the other isms compete for attention in this weird and wacky novel. Don't go into this without knowing some history of the place and an iron stomach for the more gut-wrenching episodes (also watch Derry Girls if you haven't already).
In a year where I laughed unstoppably at Derry Girls and got lost in the political and conspiratorial webs of the IRA in the wonderful non-fiction Say Nothing , the violent and artsy and manic and in-your-face For The Good Times feels like the wild afterparty in my education about The Troubles. Irish jokes, comic books, death served fresh and raw, mysticism and Catholicism and terrorism and all the other isms compete for attention in this weird and wacky novel. Don't go into this without knowing some history of the place and an iron stomach for the more gut-wrenching episodes (also watch Derry Girls if you haven't already).
December 8, 2019
Vivid and wild. A mythology of the troubles which feels true even at its most lurid. There's a power in the language that gets across the horror of troubles while framing the whole thing as an At Swim Two Birds multiple narrative. Wacko.
June 22, 2024
Absolutely goessss for long stretches but some of the digressions derail the book for just as long. The final twist also somehow seems very obvious and strangely oblique at the same time. Read a passage of this to my gf and she thought it was funny so noting that as well
February 9, 2020
Keenan has confirmed himself as a powerful new voice on the back of this, his second novel. The book occupies a space in a long tradition of working class novels from these islands and while Irvine Welsh and John Niven are clear influences, a hint of the supernatural marks him out as original to a degree. Set in the terrible cockpit of the Troubles in late 1970s Northern Ireland, the activities of a bunch of IRA men who may or may not be more into the craic of extreme behaviour than the idea of a united Ireland and, in places have doubt cast over their loyalty to the cause, make this an intense experience indeed. It’s never less than entertaining and there is black humour aplenty – the narrator calls ‘ouija boards’, ‘weegie boards’ and does end up spending a bit of time in Glasgow as well as south of the border. The intensity of the violence is at times extreme and while indefensible on one level, my memory of how the issues were covered in the British press at the time does make me cringe – that becomes more acute in the book’s final pages set at the time of the IRA hunger strikes in the Maze prison. Interestingly, Keenan helped found underrated 90s band 18 Wheeler.
December 4, 2023
simplemente not in the mood, me la ha pelao una barbaridad todo
January 31, 2025
Excellent. History. Fiction. Funny. All in one. Always remember.. until it's forgotten.
October 11, 2021
I don't know. Just couldn't get with this one ...
September 20, 2025
A unique read. Read it in stages but was compelled to finish it.
February 12, 2025
Magnífica novela sobre los tiempos del conflicto irlandés.
October 12, 2020
There were points where this was an enthralling page turner, and others where I had no idea what was going on.
I enjoyed reading about the perspective of characters in the IRA - it's not a point of view I've come across much of at all to be honest. In fact I'm pretty shockingly ignorant of the whole troubles period. I get the impression that many of the events and characters in this are pretty historically accurate and that a lot of it's just gone over my head, having not lived through that. Perhaps I would've taken more from this otherwise.
These aren't the bits I struggled to follow though - there are a lot of weird tangents going on - shifting timelines; trippy drug/alcohol fueled sections; spiritual/other-worldly bits; and a recurring sub-story which was written like a comic book (minus the artwork) which was just a bit... shite. I really didn't feel like most of these weirder sections added anything. It was when Keenan was just telling the story in a straightforward prose that I was really enjoying my time with this book. There's an ultra-violent tone and a deeply black humour running through this writing that was really compelling. I shouldn't be rooting for what is essentially a mass-murderer who seems to be killing people at random and is barely guided by any kind of structural organisation or philosophy, and yet there's something quite sexy and appealing about it.
Interesting setting, genuinely funny and gloriously dark in places, but bogged down by some nonsense along the way. Recommended by Christopher MacArthur-Boyd and purchased in Oban.
I enjoyed reading about the perspective of characters in the IRA - it's not a point of view I've come across much of at all to be honest. In fact I'm pretty shockingly ignorant of the whole troubles period. I get the impression that many of the events and characters in this are pretty historically accurate and that a lot of it's just gone over my head, having not lived through that. Perhaps I would've taken more from this otherwise.
These aren't the bits I struggled to follow though - there are a lot of weird tangents going on - shifting timelines; trippy drug/alcohol fueled sections; spiritual/other-worldly bits; and a recurring sub-story which was written like a comic book (minus the artwork) which was just a bit... shite. I really didn't feel like most of these weirder sections added anything. It was when Keenan was just telling the story in a straightforward prose that I was really enjoying my time with this book. There's an ultra-violent tone and a deeply black humour running through this writing that was really compelling. I shouldn't be rooting for what is essentially a mass-murderer who seems to be killing people at random and is barely guided by any kind of structural organisation or philosophy, and yet there's something quite sexy and appealing about it.
Interesting setting, genuinely funny and gloriously dark in places, but bogged down by some nonsense along the way. Recommended by Christopher MacArthur-Boyd and purchased in Oban.
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