Afterlife - Softcover

'Poet and journalist O'Brien's first novel is a claustrophobic and colourful piece of work, meandering between dream and nightmare on its way to nasty conclusion involving LSD and comical German anarchists.' --Guardian

'[a] darkly witty first novel . . . It is a sharp and unforgiving portrait of literary dreams and jealousies, and of the loss of youthful innocence viewed from the "afterlife of adulthood." --Sunday Times

'O'Brien, a poet himself, gets the atmosphere just right.'
--Evening Standard

'The story of a long, hot, wasted summer, sexual jealousy, dangerous youth and an inevitable inexorable death has been written plenty of times. But it has rarely been done as intelligently or as beautifully. Read this before the summer is out ... preferably by a pool.' --Waitrose Weekend

'A brilliant description of jealousy and success, this page-turner is a great literary summer read.' --Irish Times

'Wicked themes of jealousy, spite and resentment make for both alarming and absorbing reading in this book by debut novelist and prize-winning poet Sean O'Brien... A stirringly elegant thesaurus of hatred which sparks with ability.' --Sunday Business Post

Sean O’Brien is a poet, critic, playwright, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He grew up in Hull and now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne; he is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. His six collections of poetry to date have all won awards, most recently The Drowned Book (Picador, 2007) which won both the Forward Prize for best collection and the T.S. Eliot Prize. Afterlife is his first novel