Glorious Exploits

Bookseller recommendation

“How Irish can a novel be, exactly, without even once invoking Ireland or the possibility of Ireland? For answer: see Glorious Exploits. Syracuse, 412 BCE: having brutally routed an Athenian invasion, the Syracusan victors pitch the thousand-odd captured Athenians into a quarry-turned-oubliette. Enter unemployed potters Gelon and Lampo, childhood best friends (and, somehow, Dubliners) who occupy their extremely unemployed leisure hours in trips to 'feed the Athenians' wasting away in the makeshift prison pit. For perpetually buoyant Lampo, this is mere good craic and idle lark; for Gelon, who has hit rock bottom in the most desolate fashion imaginable, this is life or death. With the Peloponnesian War drawing to a close and the cultural light of Hellenic Greece in mortal peril, Lampo soon finds himself at the co-helm of a Euripides production--a medley, with an all-prisoner cast--that might just rescue the ancient world’s greatest tragedian from permanent obscurity. Written entirely in a contemporary Irish dialect, Ferdia Lennon’s debut novel illustrates more than a few sympathies between pub ballad and ancient tragedy (one has to conclude that Plutarch was, at least spiritually, an Irishman). Glorious Exploits is a mythic tribute to the part played by questionable heroes and common rogues in the preservation--and making--of great art. ”

— Reagan • Gibson's Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“What a quirky gem of a book that I listened to on audio. I just couldn’t figure out how Lennon was going to pull off this story but he did and I was captivated.”

— Jennifer • East City Bookshop

Bookseller recommendation

“A crazy, absurd tale about war, class and art set long ago (412 BCE) and far away (Syracuse, Sicily). The narrator, an unemployed potter with a bit of a habit of putting his foot in his mouth and a fondness for the tavern, agrees to help his friend stage Euripides’ play Medea by recruiting some of the Athenian prisoners left to die in the quarries in exchange for food. A riotous fun listen! ”

— Anne • Newtonville Books