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|publisher=Jonathan Cape
|date=March 2011
|summary=Hugely cinematic in style, this gangland take set 50 years in the future in a parallel Ireland is breathtakingly original and distinctive. Told in a vernacular style it is a lust and drug fuelled romp of a story that you won't easily forget.
|cover=Barry_City
Bohane is a thoroughly lawless town, set in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set in 2053, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuries. It's a violent place fuelled by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get into. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and ''City of Bohane'' is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly good.
The book's brilliance lies not so much in the plot though. It's a relatively straightforward gang land gangland power struggle. Neither does it solely lie with the great range of characters, although they are amusingly well drawn. From the gangland leader and part time mummy's boy Logan Hartnett, his domineering mother, Girly, to the young pretenders Jenni Ching, Wolfie Stanners and a certain Mr Burke, whose nickname rhymes with 'mucker', through to the arch manipulator Ol' Boy Mannion.
Great though these characters are, and Kevin Barry frequently goes to great lengths to describe their bizarre fashion tastes, it is the way that Barry uses language to describe the scenes that is so brilliant. Hardly a page went by without it invoking a smile at the sheer brilliance of the descriptions. It's difficult to give examples, because of the unique style of the language which taken out of context is merely confusing, but in a bar 'ceiling fans whirred, noirishly against the night, and were stoical, somehow, like the old uncles of the place, all raspy and emphysemic'. He does this again and again.
