Perpetual Comedown (New Island Books, 2023)
Cover design by Jack Smyth
Declan Toohey is a little genius.
— Anne Enright
Declan Toohey writes with lapel-grabbing flair and wit, and Perpetual Comedown fizzes with narrative invention, literary intrigue and esoteric mayhem. As contemporary Irish novels go, it’s out there in its own wild, fearless place.
— Rob Doyle
Such a surprising book; it reveals its secrets slowly, so what seems first to be a work in the great tradition of Irish surrealism actually becomes something real, and genuinely affecting. Through the hijinks, the satire and the fun poked at academia and literature comes heart-breaking humanity: love, loss, fear and fragility. The result is a novel that’s wild, beautiful, and poignant.
— Lisa McInerney
Outrageously original . . . a novel so unique, so zany it is unlike anything I have read before . . . It is bold. It is bonkers. It is brilliantly clever. It is also blackly funny – the prose skips along with irreverent glee, laced with puns and put-downs and perfect observations.
— Ruth Gilligan, Irish Independent
Energetic … explosive … profound … moving … [a] wild and intensely imaginative world.
[A] stunning debut . . . full of gorgeous descriptions and hilarious phrases.
A debut novel that will make your head spin, not least in awe of its author’s talent . . . bawl-out-loud funny. And moving and tragic, too, though ultimately hopeful. Reading it is like being suspended at great height from a dodgy zipline and whooshing along at the speed of sound . . . Toohey’s an original. A force to be reckoned with. A great new talent in Irish literature.
— Anne Cunningham, Meath Chronicle
Toohey will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Declan Toohey’s debut throws us into an unstable reality with only the witty and wholly unreliable voice of its protagonist to guide us … [It displays a] courage born of rightful confidence in the strength of his writing … It’s a funny and clever, touching and wild exploration of one particular mind … We are left with an impression of how fine the lines are between genius and insanity, between a mind that is truly free and a mind that is on fire. Be prepared, this book requires energy. But once you’re ready, it’s an invigorating and challenging ride.
Hilarious, chaotic and confounding … filled with light-hearted and charming prose. Toohey plays with style and form throughout, never letting an impossibly convoluted situation get in the way of great character development. A difficult novel to describe, Perpetual Comedown must be read to be believed … Toohey brilliantly captures the academic anxiety to identify an original contribution to knowledge … This experimental, thought-provoking and creative novel is probably the strangest thing you’ll read this year – in the best possible way.
Inventive, experimental and off-the-wall … In Perpetual Comedown we get the sense of a young writer at play … The book’s ambitious style is straight out of Flann O’Brien’s playbook … Each scene and sentence lead somewhere surprising … But it is the story beneath the surface that is the book’s strong point … When it peels back the layers, the book has unexpected meaning and poignancy.
Perpetual Comedown is a college daze of highs, lows and humanities in-jokes … Toohey writes with energy and wit.