A Sort of Homecoming

Although I reviewed this book elsewhere over six months ago, I have read it again since and want to make sure as many people buy it and read it as possible. I haven't figured out why this book isn't a bigger hit, is it the Irish thing? It shouldn't be, there's a useful and amusing glossary in the back of Irish terms that are too "Bourgeois To Explain" in the text.Tom Iremonger is one of the most in-your-face characters you're ever likely to meet, but only in the narrating of his own story--if you met him in a pub he'd probably be too cool to talk to you. He's a male model after all, and his poster is up all over Ireland, with the caption "Ireland's Greatest Resource." Why he decides to come home for Christmas after his six month "anti-odyssey" flying all over the world and spending his grandfather's inheritance is something he can't figure out, but once he's home he realizes that it must be to go to Mainie Doyle's party. Mainie is Tom's on-again, off-again girlfriend, the female version of the Ireland's Greatest Resource poster. Tom's substance-enhanced adventures trying to get an invitation while not seeming to want one are alternately frustrating and hilarious. Iremonger is one of the most self-absorbed characters I've ever come across, and that's the point. He does terrible, self-destructive things but they seem all to be a pose, his true heart is aching underneath all the drug-induced bravado and yearning for redemption.Robert Cremins is an excellent, sensitive, clever and funny young writer and I look forward to his follow-up to this entertaining and moving coming-of-age tale. He is irreverent in the most wholesome sense of the word. If you like Nick Hornby or Dave Eggers, you will find Cremins well worth the $11. If you are a twentysomething American of Irish descent and Catholic upbringing this book is a must read--even if you still go to mass. Slainte!

As an ex-student of Cremins', I approached this book skeptically, at best. After only a few pages, I forgot to be unsure about the book and began to simply enjoy the story. Iremonger is a pathetically likeable hero/antihero that Cremins writes authentically. Rule of Cool #1: All lovers of Nick Hornsby, Michael Hornburg, even Irvine Welsh need to take a look. It's got all the essentials: sex, drugs, betrayal, forgiveness, chaos and rebirth.

A sort of homecoming tells the facinating story of Tom Iremonger. It deals with his homecoming at Christmas and finds that while he was away everything has changed. Friends, hangouts, and family have all are different than when Tom left, and all pose a threat to Tom's percieved existance. Many problems seem to come from Tom's on-again off-again romance with Mainie Doyle. This book is a great read for anyone who has left their hometown and comes home to find everything has changed . . . or maybe they have changed and the city has stayed the same. It is a great blend of wit, humor, and life lesson.

Cremins's book is a welcome departure from the depressingly poor, and stereotypically disfunctional characters found in much other Irish literature. Tom Iremonger, the protoganist, is a shallow, coddled, self centered young Irish "prince" reminiscent of contemporaries in Long Island, London, and Los Angeles. Still stinging from adolescent insecurities he strives to project an aura of cool to wow those who once distained him. That he represents a relatively new phenomenon for Ireland is at the heart of his wanderlust and struggle in accepting Ireland as part of his self image. A refreshing and long overdue novel reflecting an increasingly bourgeois Ireland being transformed by globalization.

A truly brilliant debut novel about a charasmatic yet flawed young man called Tom Iremonger.Very funny yet moving, Iremonger is a great guide to modern Dublin, and his philosophies on life - 'the rules of cool' - are hugely entertaining. Comparisons to a young Martin Amis (as stated on the reverse of the book) are flattering to Martin Amis to be honest. Read and you'll see what I mean!