Synopses & Reviews
At once a self-styled social scientist, a spy in the baffling adult world, and a budding, hormone-driven emotional explorer, Oliver Tate is stealthily nosing his way forward through the murky and uniquely perilous waters of adolescence. His objectives? Uncovering the secrets behind his parents' teetering marriage, unraveling the mystery that is his alluring and equally quirky classmate Jordana Bevan, and understanding where he fits in among the mystifying beings in his orbit. Struggling to buoy his parents' wedded bliss, deep-six his own virginity, and sound the depths of heartache, happiness, and the business of being human, what's a lad to do? Poised precariously on the cusp of innocence and experience, Oliver Tate aims to damn the torpedoes and take the plunge.
Now a major motion picture
Synopsis
Submarine is the wickedly funny first novel by Joe Dunthorne
NOW AN ACCLAIMED FILM BY RICHARD AYOADE
Meet Oliver Tate, fifteen years old. Convinced that his father is depressed ('Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, ('a hippy-looking twonk'), he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteeen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim? Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out . . .
'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud enjoyable. The sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a troubled teenager's coming-of-age since The Catcher in the Rye' Independent
'A richly amusing tale of mock GCSEs, sex, death and challenging vocabulary . . . Excruciatingly funny incidents and cracking gags' Time Out
'Excellent . . . the wonderful, Day-Glo certainties of adolescence have rarely been so brilliantly laid out' Independent on Sunday
'Perfectly pitched . . . transplants The Catcher in the Rye to south Wales . . . Dunthorne can make you laugh like did during double physics on a wet Wednesday afternoon' Observer
'A brilliant first novel by a young man of ferocious comic talent' The Times
Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea. He is the author of Submarine, which has been translated into fifteen languages and made into an acclaimed film directed by Richard Ayoade, and Wild Abandon, which won the 2012 Encore Award. His debut poetry pamphlet was published by Faber and Faber. He lives in London.
www.joedunthorne.com