Lairies
Steve Hollyman

‘A smashmouth look at the wild west nightlife of the early noughties, where you expected to get a smack as much as you did a kebab. While Lairies pulls no punches with violence, it brings the same ruthlessness to the question of why, and what happens after the adrenaline fades.’
– Ben Halls, author of The Quarry

Shaun wakes up in hospital after a fight in a local nightclub and discovers his girlfriend has been assaulted. Ade and Colbeck were there that night – the climax to weeks of escalating violence, their two-man vigilante mission to kick back against a broken generation. A misguided plan to combat the lairies that blight Britain’s bars, pubs and streets.

What really happened? And how did it come to this?

Lairies is the brilliant and brutal debut from Steve Hollyman, mapping the lives of violent young men at the start of the twenty-first century, living aimlessly but desperately hunting for purpose. Hollyman speaks to the heart of small-town Britain, offering scathing insight into masculinity, class, and the bleak realities of a man’s aimless early twenties, lifting the lid on a world most would rather ignore.

Praise for Lairies

‘A helter-skelter whodunnit... delivering an insider critique of masculine bravado.’
– The Observer

‘Hollyman deftly portrays the realities of some of society’s most disenfranchised young men… never reads as a public service announcement but rather a direct indictment on how wider society has let so many young men fall through the cracks.’
– The Skinny

‘Lairies is an absolute triumph.’
– Kerry Hadley-Pryce, author of The Black Country

‘This is a brilliant book. Vital and violent.’
– Heidi James, author of The Sound Mirror

‘A bedtime story for a country in a coma.’
– Joe Stretch, author of Friction

‘Like Anthony Burgess and Chuck Palahniuk went on a pub crawl in twenty-first-century Britain, got out of their heads and decided to write a book together.’
– Nicholas Royle, author of Ornithology

‘I was gripped by Lairies in all its bloody, messy, terrifying glory and it left me with much to think about. Hollyman creates fully realised, believable and intriguing characters who, despite their actions, manage to keep a reader with them.’
– Northern Soul

About the Author

Steve Hollyman was born in Stoke-on-Trent and currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing. He is a graduate of the Manchester Writing School, where he completed an MA and PhD. He is the vocalist and guitarist in the three-piece alternative rock band CreepJoint, whose most recent album A Generation of the Dark Heart was released in 2018.

Paperback ISBN: 9781910312674

Ebook ISBN: 9781910312681

Publication date: April 2021

Formats: Paperback / eBook