Good Trouble

(Paperback)

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Back at dinner, somebody said that the goose thinks its a dog. No, it doesnt. It doesnt think its a dog. The goose doesnt think. The goose just is. And what the goose is is goose. But goose is not goose, Robert thinks. Even the goose isnt goose.
In Good Trouble, the first story collection from Joseph ONeill, author of Netherland, characters are forced to discover exactly who they are, and who they can never quite be.

Theres Rob, who swears he is a dependable member of society, but cant scrape together a character reference to prove thats the case. And Jayne, who has no choice but to investigate a strange noise downstairs while her husband lies glued to the bed with fear. A mother tries to find where she fits into her sons new life of semi-soft rind-washed cheeses, and a poet tries to fathom what makes a poet. Do you even have to write poetry

Packed with ONeills trademark acerbic humour, Good Trouble explores the maddening and secretly political space between thoughts and deeds, between men and women, between goose and not-goose.

Reviews

Praise for Good Trouble:

ONeills intelligence and invention puts him ahead of the pack Sunday Times

Praise for Netherland:

'A great American novel, but one with an ordinary European Everyman at its centre.' Sean O'Hagan, Observer

'An exquisitely written novel, a large fictional achievement, and one of the most remarkable post-colonial books I have ever read' James Wood, New Yorker

An extraordinary novel O'Neill is a writer of dizzying elegance' Daniel Swift, Financial Times

'Touched by greatness' Ed Caesar, Sunday Times

'It is hard to know which is stranger that a great American novel has been written about cricket or that a great cricket novel should be set in America. But both are true. Netherland, a state-of-the-nation exploration of contemporary America, is ambitious, intelligent and deeply perceptivewhether a huge six or a home run whatever the metaphor of your choice Netherland comes right out of the middle of the bat' Ed Smith, The Times

Praise for The Dog:

On page after page, O'Neill can still dazzle as a compellingly intelligent writer. Everywhere you look, there's a shimmering portrait of modernity waiting to be glimpsed [An] ambitious, lucidly thought-through novel Guardian

Our only truly international writer Breathtaking O'Neill's writing reflects the individual's concerns in our desolate modern world in prose that is illuminating, amusing, sometimes beautiful, but never showy Irish Independent

The best comic novel Ive read for ages The Scotsman

Enraged, brutal, witty and at times brilliant Sunday Times

Author Bio

Joseph ONeill is an Irish barrister living in New York. He is the author of two other novels, Netherland, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and This is the Life, and a memoir, Blood-Dark Track.