Down to the dirt

This debut novel from Canada, violently thrust into the space between Trainspotting and the writings of J.T. Leroy, features hard-edged protagonist Keith Kavanagh. With gritty accounts of sexual depravity, pyromania, substance abuse, and the botched mercy killing of poisoned cat, this dark and comic novel charts the escapades of Kavanagh from his early teens, coming of age in small-town Newfoundland, to his early twenties wandering the streets of Halifax in a demented, drunken hunt for his estranged girlfriend. Keith Kavanagh lost his virginity at 13 to a woman twice his age, and met his girlfriend while pissing on the hood of her father's truck. He may have burned down the North Side of the Cove, his Newfoundland outpost hometown, but not even his best friend knows for sure. Hard-drinking, hard-fighting, hard-ticket hooligan Kavanagh is the turbulent anti-hero of this visceral first novel by writer and actor Joel Hynes. Following Keith--along with his girlfriend Natasha and reluctant best friend Andy--from the kitchens and basements of the Cove to the bars of St. John's and the alleys of Halifax, this is a stark and edgy chronicle of violence, drugs, sex, and black humor.