Dublin writer Rob Doyle's acclaimed debut novel, Here are the Young Men, will be published in the US this June.
32-year-old Doyle, who signed to Bloomsbury, the home of JK Rowling, last year, originally published the book with Dublin-based Lilliput Press last year.
Taking its title from a Joy Division lyric, Here Are The Young Men is about a group of four hedonistic young post-Leaving Cert Dubliners, named Matthew, Rez, Kearney and Cocker.
Kearney's exploits in particular take on a decidedly dark tinge before the nihilistic endgame inexorably draws near. Violent films and equally horrible computer games, drugs, and porn comprise the natural element in which the young men exist.
This Is The Ritual, Doyle’s collection of short stories is scheduled for publication in 2016 by both Lilliput and Bloomsbury as the second in a two-book contract.
The subject matter of the individual stories has not been revealed, but speaking to literary magazine Gorse last December, Crumlin native Doyle said: “I wouldn’t write a book like Here Are The Young Men now and that’s OK because you don’t necessarily want to be repeating yourself.
"You want to be moving forward all the time, changing and developing as a writer. Now I look at it and my relationship with it is just one of pride.
"That was a straight A-Z linear narrative. And I needed to write that. To prove to myself and the world that I could do that.”
