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Right Away Monday
New Page 1 By turns savagely funny and piercingly heart-rending, Right Away Monday is an extraordinary new novel from “the best young voice in years” (David Adams Richards)
“The top cant count for much if you havent punched a shift or two on bottom” Clayton Reid is stuck in a vicious cycle. He spends just as much time scraping the bottom as he does being high as a kite and can’t seem to find middle ground. A hopelessly self-destructive and at times unforgivably brutal young man, Clayton is a sometimes bartender at the Awl and Hatchet with a bad attitude that elicits love and loathing in equal measure. Over the course of a write-off year, Clayton wrestles with the conflicting desires of wanting to matter to somebody and to care for no one, wanting to prove he’s different from the so-called wasters around him but not enough to say no to a pint. In the filthy bars, cold back alleys and soiled bedrooms of downtown St. John’s that Clayton inhabits, we spend a debauched year with him as he drinks and dreams, fights and fails, screws and screws up. He lives his life as an eternal weekend, sure he can stop any time and accomplish great things. But then Clayton meets Isadora, who stirs something real and achingly human underneath the swagger, sending him on the bender of his life. Right Away Monday is a stormy novel of unlikely beauty, peopled by unforgettable characters―including one Valentine Reid, Clayton’s burnt-out and battered rocker uncle; the lovely though world-weary Monica; and the shrewd Mike Quinn, slum landlord and owner of the Awl and Hatchet. Unnervingly authentic, these are the constituents of a world grown weary and wasted, with a new generation stumbling blindly behind. But oblivion is only skin deep. Beneath the wreckage of youthful distraction lie the vast and abiding questions that haunt our quietest moments―questions of destiny, fate, mortality and of our connections to one another. Ushering the chaos and uncertainty of this dark bar-room universe into the bright intensity of Hynes’ unflinching gaze, Right Away Monday will grab you by the throat and not let you go.
“The top cant count for much if you havent punched a shift or two on bottom” Clayton Reid is stuck in a vicious cycle. He spends just as much time scraping the bottom as he does being high as a kite and can’t seem to find middle ground. A hopelessly self-destructive and at times unforgivably brutal young man, Clayton is a sometimes bartender at the Awl and Hatchet with a bad attitude that elicits love and loathing in equal measure. Over the course of a write-off year, Clayton wrestles with the conflicting desires of wanting to matter to somebody and to care for no one, wanting to prove he’s different from the so-called wasters around him but not enough to say no to a pint. In the filthy bars, cold back alleys and soiled bedrooms of downtown St. John’s that Clayton inhabits, we spend a debauched year with him as he drinks and dreams, fights and fails, screws and screws up. He lives his life as an eternal weekend, sure he can stop any time and accomplish great things. But then Clayton meets Isadora, who stirs something real and achingly human underneath the swagger, sending him on the bender of his life. Right Away Monday is a stormy novel of unlikely beauty, peopled by unforgettable characters―including one Valentine Reid, Clayton’s burnt-out and battered rocker uncle; the lovely though world-weary Monica; and the shrewd Mike Quinn, slum landlord and owner of the Awl and Hatchet. Unnervingly authentic, these are the constituents of a world grown weary and wasted, with a new generation stumbling blindly behind. But oblivion is only skin deep. Beneath the wreckage of youthful distraction lie the vast and abiding questions that haunt our quietest moments―questions of destiny, fate, mortality and of our connections to one another. Ushering the chaos and uncertainty of this dark bar-room universe into the bright intensity of Hynes’ unflinching gaze, Right Away Monday will grab you by the throat and not let you go.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 2007
7 people are currently reading
123 people want to read
About the author
Joel Thomas Hynes
9 books92 followersJOEL THOMAS HYNES was born and raised in Calvert, Newfoundland. His book, Down to the Dirt, won the Percy Janes First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Atlantic Book Awards and the Winterset Award, and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It has also been staged to widespread acclaim and was recently adapted for the big screen. A celebrated author of novels, short stories and stage plays, Hynes is also a professional actor who has performed numerous leading roles for film, television and stage.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 15, 2018
I gave this work a low rating more because of my personal reaction to the subject matter, the incessant use of profanity, degrading representations of people, descriptive passages of drug taking, excessive alcohol abuse, sexual situations, in the absence of any real plot. It seemed to be a depiction of a particular group of people, totally negative throughout, with seeming moments of clarity of and attempts at reform, all to come crashing down.
I will read one other Joel Thomas Hynes, only because it won a Givernor General award for fiction, but I cannot see myself purusing any further works by this author.
Again, my negative review is probably because of a dislike of the material. If the goal was to create a totally negative impression...it worked.
I will read one other Joel Thomas Hynes, only because it won a Givernor General award for fiction, but I cannot see myself purusing any further works by this author.
Again, my negative review is probably because of a dislike of the material. If the goal was to create a totally negative impression...it worked.
October 9, 2008
I read this book in a night and a half in South Korea. It brought me back to the downtown life of St. John's. It's a funny, gritty, sometimes tragic read about people who get shitfaced at the Spur, get into fights, and end up at the Zone. It's also about cleaning yourself up before you fall back into it again.
March 3, 2018
Realistic and engrossing.
If you get offended - easily or otherwise , don't bother with this book. This is a gritty look at a world of addiction and all of the selfish, self centered self- abuse that goes along with it. The characters are sad, flawed, not very likable and yet you are sucked into their world made to care what happens to them,and then are left holding the bag at the last page. I couldn't put this book down.
If you get offended - easily or otherwise , don't bother with this book. This is a gritty look at a world of addiction and all of the selfish, self centered self- abuse that goes along with it. The characters are sad, flawed, not very likable and yet you are sucked into their world made to care what happens to them,and then are left holding the bag at the last page. I couldn't put this book down.
July 4, 2017
Shades of Heather O' Neill! This novel shows the dark side of life in St. John's, Newfoundland - sex, drugs and even a bit of rock and roll. The gritty underbelly of a 'small town' city. Can't wait for his 'Down To The Dirt'!
August 11, 2018
Really enjoy Hynes' work.
August 25, 2018
Brilliant. Charles Bukowski would be proud!
July 28, 2021
I read this many years ago while working away, really gave a strong sense of home. Very dark but not depressingly so.
November 3, 2017
Mr. Hynes definitely did not disappoint with this one! The subject matter is very dark, but so well protrayed. It was a fantastic book and it is now making its way to Africa as I have sent it to a friend. Looking forward to reading all the other works by this author.
August 15, 2025
5.0/5.0
Sad I s'pose, if I could bring meself to give a fuck.
The sour stench of thawing dogshit on the wind. The first true sign of spring in Newfoundland.
And we never really stops lookin elsewhere now do we?
But I've been jumpin off the wharf and fallin outta boats now since I was ya fuckin high and it's so long since I had a swim I'm just gonna go for it.
It's a wicked feeling, when you knows something real is in the works, when you starts to crave the taste of each other.
And then she was gone. And I poured Javex into all her plants. They turned a pale yellow and shriveled and died within an hour. I felt even worse, cause really what did the plants do?
Sad I s'pose, if I could bring meself to give a fuck.
The sour stench of thawing dogshit on the wind. The first true sign of spring in Newfoundland.
And we never really stops lookin elsewhere now do we?
But I've been jumpin off the wharf and fallin outta boats now since I was ya fuckin high and it's so long since I had a swim I'm just gonna go for it.
It's a wicked feeling, when you knows something real is in the works, when you starts to crave the taste of each other.
And then she was gone. And I poured Javex into all her plants. They turned a pale yellow and shriveled and died within an hour. I felt even worse, cause really what did the plants do?
May 9, 2013
Not sure why Right Away Monday didn't get the same attention as the author's first novel, the award winning Down to the Dirt. Perhaps because the subject matter was pretty much the same - booze, drugs, sex, and dark humor. For my money though, Right Away Monday was far more substantial and better written.
August 6, 2013
This is a very dark and depressing book about life in the bars in St. John's. The only good thing is the writing, there are no likeable characters.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews