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Vaughn Public Library - Ashland

It's what he would've wanted: a novel about secrets, suicide, and bad weather

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher:
Scribner
Pub. Date:
2001
Language:
English
Description
Sean Hughes is an award-winning Irish comic turned bestselling writer whom the British Independent has compared to the likes of Irvine Welsh, James Kelman, and Will Self. Now, the popular comedian delivers It's What He Would've Wanted, a brutally funny, highly charged, and moving novel about a directionless thirty-year-old man's belated transition into adulthood. Our narrator and protagonist is Shea Hickson, a commitment-phobic just-turned-thirty-year-old with somewhat adolescent leanings. Shea lives off lottery winnings and spends his time blindly serving a secret organization whose stated duty is to "seek truth," which, though Shea doesn't quite realize it, turns out to be a small-time terrorist gig. Shea's parents appear to be a quintessentially comfortable, suburban middle-class couple, and when sons Shea and Orwell (named after Che Guevara and George, their father having been something of a nostalgic radical) arrive for Christmas Eve, all seems as it should be. But when Shea turns a corner to find his father, a BBC weatherman, hanging from the light fixture, the son's disaffected existence is turned upside down. Worse, Shea's discovery of an encoded journal his father had been keeping uncovers shocking revelations about his father's disappointed life as a parent, husband, and disillusioned minor celebrity. Jolted from his emotional ennui, Shea determines to figure out what drove his father to his death and, in the process of unraveling the Hickson family's increasingly distasteful secrets, comes to better understand himself. With wry humor and savage undercurrents, the story winds through the seamier side of London life -- skirting the worlds of television, newspapers, and small-scale urban terrorism. Buoyed by Hughes's edgy humor and Seinfeldian observations about modern life, It's What He Would've Wanted dissects and mutilates traditional family values as it maps one son's attempt to piece together a world fractured by alienation, paranoia, and conflict.
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ISBN:
9780743201599
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID44623d4f-30fb-f429-e19f-1b2e5d10a9c6
Grouping Titleits what he would ve wanted a novel about secrets suicide and bad weather
Grouping Authorsean hughes
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-03-14 09:33:22AM
Last Indexed2024-03-28 04:59:13AM

Solr Fields

accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Hughes, Sean, 1965-2017
author_display
Hughes, Sean
available_at_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
detailed_location_ashland
Ashland Adult Fiction
display_description
format_ashland
Book
format_category_ashland
Books
id
44623d4f-30fb-f429-e19f-1b2e5d10a9c6
isbn
9780743201599
itype_ashland
BOOK - HARDCOVER
last_indexed
2024-03-28T09:59:13.338Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Fiction
literary_form_full
Fiction
local_callnumber_ashland
HUGHES
owning_library_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
owning_location_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
primary_isbn
9780743201599
publishDate
2001
publisher
Scribner
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Young men -- Fiction
title_display
It's what he would've wanted : a novel about secrets, suicide, and bad weather
title_full
It's what he would've wanted : a novel about secrets, suicide, and bad weather / by Sean Hughes
title_short
It's what he would've wanted
title_sub
a novel about secrets, suicide, and bad weather
topic_facet
Young men

Solr Details Tables

item_details

Bib IdItem IdShelf LocCall NumFormatFormat CategoryNum CopiesIs Order ItemIs eContenteContent SourceeContent URLDetailed StatusLast CheckinLocation
ils:.b13323192.i20301133Ashland Adult FictionHUGHES1falsefalseAvailableMay 23, 2022asfic

record_details

Bib IdFormatFormat CategoryEditionLanguagePublisherPublication DatePhysical DescriptionAbridged
ils:.b13323192BookBooksEnglishScribner2001290 pages ; 24 cm

scoping_details_ashland

Bib IdItem IdGrouped StatusStatusLocally OwnedAvailableHoldableBookableIn Library Use OnlyLibrary OwnedHoldable PTypesBookable PTypesLocal Url
ils:.b13323192.i20301133On ShelfAvailablefalsetruetruefalsefalsetrue9999