First published 2009
The narrator joins a writing course at Trinity College in 1980s Dublin, where heroin ravages the streets and economic prosperity remains a distant dream. She and her fellow mature students quickly fall under the spell of their instructor, a writer whose reputation precedes him into every classroom discussion. What begins as intellectual admiration transforms into something far more dangerous as the small group competes for his attention and approval. The students' obsession deepens week by week, reshaping their relationships with each other and warping their sense of reality. As their fixation spirals beyond reasonable boundaries, the group dynamic shifts in unpredictable ways. The narrator watches helplessly as events accelerate toward a breaking point that will test every bond they have formed. This is a story about the seductive power of charisma and the lengths people will go to claim a piece of someone they worship.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, addiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Dublin, Ireland, Trinity College
Period: 1980s
280 pages · Kindle Edition
Content warnings: addiction, mental-illness