The Young are Desperate

Brendan Kennelly is one of Ireland's best-loved writers... The Crooked Cross is a lively, episodic book... [The Florentines] explores with Kennelly's characteristic wit -- and understanding -- the other side of emigration... Laughter is never far away in these entertaining books, but always, among the pints and the songs and the wisecracks, there runs a deeper, darker note.'
John Wyse Jackson, The Irish Catholic'...this book couples two boisterous, beautiful novels told with great compassion... Kennelly reveals the monsters and heroes in all of us.'
Irish Times'The young, for all their glory, are desperate, like the Florentines in plague-time.'In The Crooked Cross, a village is struck by a drought that is as much spiritual as physical; in The Florentines, a young man leaves Ireland to find joy in an English university. In these two vivid novels, originally published in the 1960s, renowned poet Brendan Kennelly celebrates the energy of youth -- and laments the tragedy of that energy being stifled.