In Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, in the seventies, nothing happens. Every day. Teenagers Declan Lydon and his trusted friend Spit Maguire stand under lampposts, in their circles of saliva, waiting to be overtaken by some hormonal storm, to be enveloped by strange women, to finally make some connection with the glorious, glamorous world they know is out there somewhere. Their salvation - and release from the grinding tedium and bewilderment of small-town adolescence - comes through music. When, miraculously, Thin Lizzy come to town, Declan goes in to the concert in his brown cardigan and emerges wearing a black leather jacket...Sophisticated Boom Boom is a tender, hilarious account of the agonies and absurdities of growing up in a backwater of pebbledash and Space Invaders - about the loyalty of friends as they stumble together through the awkward years of puberty into an equally confusing independence, for which they are seriously under-prepared. Crucially, though, this is a love-letter to the period and the place, and to the liberating, healing power of music that galvanises and transforms.
In the expert hands of John Kelly, this is a thrilling journey: touching, original and very funny.
- ISBN10 0224061291
- ISBN13 9780224061292
- Publish Date 17 April 2003
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 7 July 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 208
- Language English