Book review: Perpetual Comedown is a college daze of highs, lows, and humanities in-jokes

"Darren’s thesis on existential realism in postwar American fiction is not going well. This is not entirely the fault of academic staff; it also because Darren is not very stable mentally."

For the cover of Declan Toohey’s novel Perpetual Comedown, Jack Smyth, a Dublin-born illustrator, has chosen an orange warty gourd that looks like a detumescent, or castrated, penis.

• Perpetual Comedown
• Declan Toohey
• New Island, pb €15.95