'Suberb . . . vivid' TELEGRAPH

'The arrival of a writer of considerable gifts' TLS

'Michael Deagler is the real deal . . . a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer' PERCIVAL EVERETT

'Illuminating and moving' AIMEE BENDER

Dennis Monk is about to spend his first summer sober. At twenty-six he is ready to re-join sensible adult life, but just when Dennis needs stability, his uptight parents kick him out into a world of couch-surfing.

Everything around him has changed and everyone he knows seems to be doing better than he is. At every street corner, former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers threaten to burst the bubble of his recovery. And Dennis Monk is about to learn the difference between getting sober and staying sober in this new world.

Early Sobrieties is a devastatingly witty novel about coming of age a second time. Deagler's debut marks the arrival of an astonishing new voice in American fiction.

About the Author
Michael Deagler's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Harper's, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City.

Reviews
Michael Deagler is the real deal. This novel is surprising in all the best ways. The actions of the complex and complicated people in this world are not predictable, but always, frighteningly, believable. Deagler writes with great control and understatement. This is a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer -- Percival Everett, 2023 Windham Campbell Prize recipient and author of Dr. No
Illuminating and moving-Deagler's debut pulls in a reader with such an inviting clarity. There's something about the honesty in this voice that creates a lot of room for the reader to connect, imagine, and feel -- Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade
This is a funny, sad but - first of all - incredibly soulful novel. It offers an unflinching account of the life which has to be lived in the aftermath of a change of heart. Here is a narrator who is clear-eyed and yet sun-dazzled; born again but as an actual newborn. It will literally make you laugh and it will literally make you cry. -- Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork
Superb . . . Deagler is very good. His prose is conversational and vivid; his characters talk and act like real people, in constantly surprising and plausible ways; and everything that happens, no matter how low-key or incidental to the plot, has the detailed intricacy of ordinary life -- Benjamin Markovits * Telegraph *
All we have is Monk's peripatetic wanderings and the pleasure of his voice, which is consistently funny and wise . . . There's a sense of dislocation or dissociation in this recovering addict's observations, which Deagler perfectly articulates . . . What makes the novel cohere, and what makes it such a pleasure, is Monk's stream-clear voice and his growing insight into his condition. -- Jude Cook * The Spectator *



Book Information
ISBN 9781529153811
Author Michael Deagler
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Hutchinson Heinemann
Publisher Cornerstone
Weight(grams) 38g
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 145mm * 26mm