Open, Heaven - A Novel

A stunning novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, a luminous and intensely evocative portrayal of two teeneagers bonding with each other over one heady, transformative year. "[Open, Heaven] is a searching novel orbiting pleasure, loss, and the ecstatic release of both; which is to say it’s a novel about time. Which is to say it’s a novel about us." —Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr! Set in a remote village in the north of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives. James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger.