A raw and striking debut novel about redemption and recovery
‘Michael Deagler is the real deal . . . This is a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer’ PERCIVAL EVERETT
‘Illuminating and moving’ AIMEE BENDER
Dennis Monk is about to spend his first summer sober. At twenty-six he is ready to re-join sensible adult life, but just when Dennis needs stability, his uptight parents kick him out into a world of couch-surfing.
Everything around him has changed and everyone he knows seems to be doing better than he is. At every street corner, former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers threaten to burst the bubble of his recovery. And Dennis Monk is about to learn the difference between getting sober and staying sober in this new world.
Early Sobrieties is a devastatingly witty novel about coming of age a second time. Deagler’s debut marks the arrival of an astonishing new voice in American fiction.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 272
Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
Publication date: 15/10/2024
Early Sobrieties
by Michael Deagler
Review by Renata
Tales of drunks and drinking fill the literary canon, but when writer Michael Deagler got sober, he couldn't find much outside the memoir section that explored that experience. The novel he wrote in response is a spare, affecting picture of a young man trying to pin his fragile sobriety to a version of self and future that he can believe in. As his fallible protagonist - the wryly named Denis Monk - bounces between friends' couches and gig jobs, Deagler draws real insight from his stumbling, determined attempts at connection. Monk is no plaster saint, but this makes his genuine transformation - realised one dogged day at a time - all the more illuminating. This funny, fresh and surprising debut avoids all the cliches of the redemptive arc and delivers a nuanced picture of what it really takes to change.
For fans of Ben Lerner and Jonathan Franzen
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