Mulcahy Conway Associates

The Tenderloin

It's 1994 and Evan has embarked on an adventure that will change his life. Having grown up in Dublin, a relative innocent, he arrives in San Francisco with his friend, Milo, just as the city is on the cusp of a revolution: the Internet is booming and there is a new drug in town. The shiny new worlds of Apple and Microsoft illuminate the city and the rave scene coexists alongside Deadheads and hippies.

But soon Evan's savings start to disappear and his friends tire of him sleeping on their floors, so he needs to take any work he can find. A chance encounter takes him to ForwardSlash, an Internet company run by the charismatic Sam Couples, a surrogate father figure but also the object of very confused emotions for the naive Evan. When Roisin, Milo's ex-girlfriend, also pitches up to remind him of their own brief encounter, Evan's confusion about his sexuality and his future is complete. Will he continue to live vicariously through his friends, or can he finally summon up the courage to act on his impulses?

The Tenderloin is a freshly narrated, beautifully observed and emotionally affecting story of young man's struggle for self-definition, told with equal parts charm, humour and lyricism from a wonderful new Irish talent.

Reviews

bracingly honest, entertaining and sharply well-observed... The Tenderloin is a story which could only have been written now, but whose themes, the loss of innocence, the difficulties of embarking on adult life, are universal.

Irish Independent

Debut coming-of-age novels are nothing new, but ones that freshen the genre are. John Butler's The Tenderloin, about three young Dublin twentysomethings who head to San Francisco during the dotcom explosion of 1995, updates a familiar story without sacrificing those things we've come to expect - sexual exploration and identity, loneliness, the ambiguities of adulthood.

Mark Turner, The Independent

The Tenderloin is well-written and drops all the right cultural references. Butler captures the flamoboyant optimism of the times.

Sunday Herald

John Butler has a terrific, eavesdropper’s ear for dialogue... but it’s [his] sketches of the city and its residents - from the Deadheads to the dealers to the blow-dried MBA types - that is at the heart of this funny and unexpectedly moving novel’s appeal.

Mail Online