Jerome is sixteen and king of the west coast, self-assured but secluded. He gazes out over the Atlantic Ocean with a confidence in his own superior intellect and perception of global truths and world music, but is ignorant even of the living history just a few miles over the border from his Irish hometown. Armed with a single condom, Jerome sets out on the July 12 bank holiday weekend to qualify his manhood and find out “about love”.

In this debut novel we are introduced to a young protagonist whose series of misadventures leave us with tears of laughter in our eyes. Maybe he is the personification of the i-generation; gormless yet romantic, angry but idealistic, defining himself by music and love.

Jerome follows his quest for love with a sense of fairy tale delusion. Perhaps it is not until our thirties or forties that we look back to our adolescence, between tears, and realise what glimpses fairy tales gave us of vast and real truths.

Gerry Feehily is an Irish journalist and literary translator who has been living in Paris for ten years. He regularly writes for the Independent, the New Statesman and The Irish Examiner. Previous publications include translations of Sniper by Pavel Hak and Into the Quick Life by Jean Hatzfeld (both Serpents Tail 2005). He has also worked as a reader for Plon, a French publishing house, and was, to his eternal shame, a model for at least four years.