Joseph O’Neill plumbs the depths and shallows of male friendship in his dazzling tale of belonging and not belonging - and the uneasy state in between.

Lost in a country he had come to regard as his new home, Hans seeks comfort in a most alien place - the thriving world of New York cricket, where immigrants from Asia and the West Indies play a mystifying game in the city’s most marginal parks. Here, Hans befriends Chuck Ramkissoon, full of dreams and schemes, and the sense of American possibility. Over the course of a summer, Hans grows to share Chuck’s vision - until he begins to glimpse the darker side of his new friend’s ambitions.

Longlisted
The Man Booker Prize 2008
Published by
4th Estate
Publication date
Joseph O'Neil

Joseph O'Neill

About the Author

Joseph O’Neill is a double Booker longlistee (2008 and 2014) who read law at university rather than English because ‘literature was too precious’ to demystify it by too much academic analysis.
More about Joseph O'Neill

Other nominated books by Joseph O'Neill

The Dog