Music Love Drugs War

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Geraldine Quigley: Music Love Drugs War (2019, Penguin Books, Limited)

English language

Published Feb. 8, 2019 by Penguin Books, Limited.

ISBN:
978-0-241-35414-8
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4 stars (1 review)

A tender, devastating coming-of-age debut novel about friendship, innocence and war.

The end of the school year is approaching, and siblings Paddy and Liz McLaughlin, Christy Meehan, Kevin Thompson and their friends will soon have to decide what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. But it's hard to focus when there's the allure of their favourite hangout place, the dingy 'Cave', where they go to drink and flirt and smoke. Most days, Christy, Paddy and Kevin lie around listening to Dexys and Joy Division. Through a fog of marijuana, beer and budding romance, the future is distant and unreal.

But this is Derry in 1981, and they can't ignore the turmoil of the outside world. A friend is killed, and Christy and Paddy, stunned out of their stupor, take matters into their own hands. Some choices are irreversible, and choosing to fight will take hold of …

3 editions

Vivid and thought-provoking

4 stars

For anyone unconvinced of the need to Not build a new hard border between Northern Ireland and Eire, I think Music Love Drugs War should be required reading over the next few weeks. Set in early 1980s Derry, Quigley's novel is essentially the story of how a group of teenagers deal with the usual angst of leaving school and entering into adulthood. The story mostly follows the boys of the group as the girls' options - other than potential university student Liz - are already restricted by social customs and expectations. For the boys however there are the competing appeals of signing on, taking a drudge job, or maybe leaving the country in search of a real opportunity. There is also the shadier course of joining the IRA and discovering a cause worth dying for.

I loved Quigley's portrayal of daily life in 1980s Northern Ireland. Much of the mundane …