Down with the Underdogs

by Ian Truman

Gentrification is moving in hard and fast in Montreal’s South-Western districts. D’Arcy Kennedy finds himself out of breath, out of a job and raising a kid in a small home meant for another era.
As the bulldozers take away entire chapters of his life, he turns to old acquaintances for work, leaning in on his hard-earned reputation as a good PI to find employment with the Irish mafia.


But even organized crime is struggling to keep up with the changing landscape of the City. Weed is going legal, trust funds are pushing realtors and people who would have not dared cross the Irish not so long ago now defy them carelessly.


Navigating his past and staking his future on this new life, D’Arcy Kennedy will have to thread a razor thin line between the law, loyalty and his own family if he wants a place for him and his own at the end of it all.


Praise for DOWN WITH THE


“A working class family man strikes a deal with the devil in Ian Truman’s fast-paced, volatile Down with the Underdogs. The result is class warfare on the streets of Montreal. Truman offers an unflinching portrait of a city caught in the throes of gentrification, and one person’s struggle to fight back. An excellent read.” —Sam Wiebe, author of the Wakeland novels.


“Truman captures life on the edges—of culture, of language, of the legal and illegal, of the sane and the mad. And he tells a great story in the process.” —Warren Moore, author of Broken Glass Waltzes

ebook

Published August 6, 2018

About the author

Ian Truman is a Franglais author the East-End of Montreal. He is a fan of dirty realism, noir, satire, punk, hardcore and hopes to mix these genres in all of his works.

A graduate of Concordia University’s creative writing program, he won the 2013 Expozine Awards for best book in English (A TEENAGE SUICIDE). His latest works include GRAND TRUNK AND SHEARER (Down and Out Books) and the Montreal Noir anthology (Akashic Press) as well as the upcoming DOWN WITH THE UNDERDOGS.

*Been inactive for quite a while on the author front, thanks you if you're checking up on the work but please don't write here and expect a reply. Sincerely, Yan*

Reviews

[Darrell Grizzle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Down With the Underdogs is a gritty noir novel that is both literary fiction and crime fiction. A direct sequel to Truman’s earlier novel Grand Trunk and Shearer, this one works well as a stand-alone. An acute awareness of working-class struggle pervades the novel. Protagonist D’Arcy Kennedy feels a strong resentment against the wealthy upper classes even as he works to join their ranks so he can provide for Patricia (sometimes referred to as his wife, sometimes as his girlfriend) and their infant son. Even after he goes to work for organized crime, D’Arcy still finds himself in “the working class of the criminal world” (from chapter 22). If this novel had a soundtrack, “Worker’s Song” by the Dropkick Murphys would definitely be on it. I got “hooked” early on and didn’t want to put it down till I was finished. Highly recommended.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of D’Arcy Kennedy is fraught with hopelessness. D’Arcy is at once emotional and distant. Life seems to oppress him and beat him down, while he at the same time makes no effort to over come his history and circumstances. Although I connected with D’Arcy on an emotional level, in real life I tend to avoid people like him.
Note: There some typos and misuse of words that an editor should catch.