John the Revelator

Joining the ranks of the great novels of friendship and betrayal--A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha--John the Revelator grapples with the pull of the world and the hold of those we love. Suffused with family secrets, uncanny imagery, black humor, and hypnotic prose, it is a novel to fall in love with and an astounding debut.

John Devine is stuck in a small town in the eerie landscape of southeast Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the ''neighborly'' Mrs. Nagle. When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John's lonely life suddenly seems full of possibility. He is taken up by mischief and discovery, hiding in the world beyond as Lily's mysterious illness worsens. But Jamey and John's nose for trouble may be their undoing, and soon John will be faced with a terrible moral dilemma.