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Operation Save Western Civilisation
by Sean Downey
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 1st December, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-907179-26-6
Price: €15
Intelligent, creative, charismatic and innately rebellious, William Dempsey feels from a young age that he simply does not fit in.
Perennially ill at ease within the turgid banalities of a typical provincial Irish upbringing, young Dempsey seeks to effect resistance in a variety of bizarre ways: In school, he launches a minor rebellion, sulks, broods and writes through his college years, and – in a hapless and hilarious finale – seeks (with some weird amigos!) to revivify what he sees as a bankrupt civilisation through his attempt to prove that ghosts actually exist! Crammed alternately with adventurous teenage mishap, intellectual disquisition and incidents of slapstick hilarity, “Operation Save Western Civilisation” will keep readers gripped from start to finish.
An Extract from Operation Save Western Civilisation
William Dempsey was bored.
He hauled himself upward, twisting to face the circles of light that pierced the limitless night behind. He could vaguely discern the occupant of the vehicle, a gloom of humanity static behind the lights. He wondered who the person was, where he or she was going. A bank robber? Or, or, someone who had just broken out of jail and was on the run from the guards? This reminded him of the comic story that he had read earlier in the caravan about these English lads who had been sent into Berlin or somewhere as spies and had to hide from everyone because they were spies and one of them had a scar and—Her hand caught him low, cracking on the back of his thigh like a whip. He came around in shock, saw her white teeth livid in the dark, heard her spit the words that would remain with him forever.
- Sit down! I told you before not to stand in the car! How dare you do that again! God, you never do anything you’re told, do you? Never! You’re nothing but trouble! God, I knew you’d be trouble. Ever since the day he was born I knew he’d be trouble.
His father grunted something about a little bollocks.
He crumpled into the corner by the window, his watering eyes intent upon the black flurry of the passing universe. A motorbike snored past, coning away into a red dot. His whole being flared suddenly into a garish, frantic confusion of anger and hurt. A heavy lump bobbed in his throat. He wanted to run, wanted to cry, wanted to be hugged, to be told that he was not trouble, that he was like his brother and sisters.
After the initial shock had subsided, he became aware of his brother’s warm, breathing form beside him. He turned quietly, catching in an instant the sneering face flamed into momentary sight by the headlights of a passing car.
