White City

Reviews

'White City is a dark, hilarious and emotionally profound study of the toxic effects of greed and entitlement. Also, a story brilliantly and movingly told. Couldn’t stop reading it. Will read it again'
  'This is part thriller but mostly a look at what it means to grow up... full of ridiculously beautiful, polished, & often scathing sentences. This novel is pleasing on so many levels, both intellectually & emotionally... You'll laugh, you'll cry... Read it, read it, read it'  ‘A fast-paced and wickedly funny novel. Hugely entertaining. White City grabbed me from the opening pages and didn't let go’ 
  'With the brilliant Bad Day in Blackrock back in 2008, Kevin Power more than earned his standing as one of our most prodigious talents. It's been a while, and anticipation for new work has been high, but White City – wild and beautiful, a whole addictive and breathlessly compelling world squeezed between these covers – has been worth every minute of the wait. A magnificent novel from a writer who is soaring to the most spectacular heights' 'I can't recommend it enough. It's often hilariously funny but it's also a sharp and smart dissection of contemporary materialism'  'An immensely enjoyable and tautly written account of a young man from an affluent family whose life of privilege is turned upside down'  'Spiky, blackly funny novel that offers an incisive study on class, entitlement and masculinity' 'Capacious and comic, luxuriantly written, with an intricate plot and heightened characterisation… both riotous rant and thoughtful coming-of-age tale' 
  'Outstanding second novel... A brilliantly entertaining novel that is profound in the most unexpected ways. Power is that rarity, a genuinely funny novelist... Yet all the more remarkable is Power's handling of tone: this novel moves effortlessly between humour and sincerity; it is steeped in empathy and raw anger' 
  'Worth the wait... Narrative twists and turns keep the reader turning the page, but Power is also a master of striking imagery, with which he threads his text' 
  'The kind of novel that makes writers jealous and readers cancel all their plans to finish it. As a commentary on the classless contemporary upper class, it's cutting and hilarious; as a portrait of the artist as a young man waylaid by his membership in that class, it's profound, unpretentious, unapologetically intelligent, and, again, really hilarious'  'White City is brilliant on the high-octane vacuity of Ireland’s rentier class. Power’s trademark shimmering prose counterpoints a driving narrative... Brilliant'  'Funny, and gorgeously written, and just relentlessly entertaining'  '[A] sprawling social satire of the sort we seldom see in Irish fiction… a tremendously zesty and zeitgeisty piece of writing. There are so many good lines I stopped highlighting them, always a good sign'   '[A] biting page-turner… Power’s writing is both strong and savage'  'White City synthesises familiar forms into a whole: the rogue’s confession, the young man finding his way, the post-Celtic Tiger satire on puffed-up, self-perpetuating bullshit businesses… Power shows his own capacity for comic timing and pithy aperçus'  'As if Martin Amis in his more wickedly funny moments had decided that Monkstown Central was the Year Zero of his fiction […] there’s a powerful social conscience at work here […] An extremely funny book […] Kevin Power shows his chops as a proper heavyweight novelist. Unequivocally one of the most purely enjoyable books, in the classic-novel sense […] a zinger on every page' ‘Kevin Power’s Bad Day in Blackrock (2008) was one of the most memorable Irish novels of the new century… White City has passages of striking lyrical subtlety and the different storylines are managed with great dexterity. Much has changed in Ireland since Bad Day in Blackrock was published, but as Power’s adept and absorbing new novel reminds us, much has not. White City demands to be read’  ‘White City is likely to be the most solid, well-rounded novel to come out of Ireland this year… At once a pacy page-turner with a nerve-frazzling plot and a realistic and haunting tale of our interconnected world… White City is an all-round superb book that will stay with you long after the inevitable binge read’   ‘[T]his dark caper evolves to ask searching moral questions… with its 11th-hour twist, this ambitious, attention-grabbing novel seems ripe for cinematic adaptation’  Expand reviews