David Keenan

Boyhood

Glasgow, 1979. A young boy is abducted outside a football ground.

Nine years later. The boy's brother, Aaron Murray, is facing the final days of his youth. His own journey of grief and  recovery has been guided by an angel, The Precious Gift - perhaps imagined, perhaps real - who has blessed Aaron with redemptive, messianic powers. These have enabled him to see through the past and present, joining the dots  

between a vast array of characters; ballerinas, soldiers, burlesque dancers, East End gangsters and the Vampire of Derry, all tied up in each other's fate. 

As Aaron's visions span cities and decades, from wartime Paris to the Troubles in the 1970s and Mexico City in the 1980s, Boyhood builds to an extraordinary, intense, climactic moment of redemption. 

A  hymn to the resilience of youth, to the brave dreams of artists and lovers and a love letter to Glasgow - a city where magic happens. 

David Keenan is a Scottish writer and music journalist. He is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including the cult classic This Is Memorial Device and For the Good Times, which won the Gordon Burn Prize. His novel Xstabeth was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. He is also the author of England’s Hidden Reverse, a definitive history of the UK post-punk and industrial music scenes. He has been writing about music since the age of seventeen, and in 2025 a selection of his music writing was published as Volcanic Tongue.