num_pages: 310
description: Our religion Life, Liberty and the pursuit of a second chance. We spend our days in mere rehearsal for the time, the great day, when we will iron it all out and start to really live. The great, bright moment when all our daily evasions, compromises and dissatisfactions will all be rewarded and transfigured.In Dead Long Enough, James Hawes' third novel, he presents the "great day" as a myriad of bewildering choices, hearty arguments, humorous banter and the copious consumption of drugs. Every year, three people meet to celebrate the "false" birthday of their friend Harry McDonald, celebrity archaeologist. Armed only with their toothbrushes, credit cards and cash, they all travel to a destination known only to Harry--an attempt to recapture their youth. This year, however, Harry's life takes an unexpected, hair-raising turn at an IRA pub. Like his two previous novels, Hawes' writing is thoroughly infused with a passionate and sometimes hysterical fear of ageing, creating an atmosphere of aimless urgency. It would be wrong to specifically cast this book to a thirtysomething age group but that is where most empathy will lie. Even so, it will be an attractive and intriguing read for those who are curious about what (possibly) lies ahead, or for others, what they've left behind. --Danny Graydon Harry MacDonald had seen plenty of skulls - arsing about with some poor sod or other's skull is what pays Harry's rent - but until the day of his official thirty-ninth birthday (actually, Harry was knocking on forty), which was also the day he met Shnade again, he had never noticed the shape of his own skull-to-be; and until the night of that same day, he had never seen a living skull being crunched deliberately, wetly inwards. Perhaps it all happened because Harry had got lost in his work for too long. Or perhaps because Shnade had got lost doing nothing for too long. Or perhaps because all of us, Harry and Shnade included, are lost full stop.
language: English
title: Dead Long Enough
titlecomplete: Dead Long Enough
genres: Fiction
ratings_count: 80
publisher: Vintage Uk