Franky, a shy thirty- or forty-something librarian, has spent his entire life on ‘The Avenue’, somewhere presumably in a less affluent part of Dublin. Having devoted his younger years to caring for his depressed father, Franky married young to the older Myrtle to avoid the scandal of a child born out of wedlock, and has shuffled along ever since, engaged in retiring activities like gardening and reading.

But when a set of go-go dancers comes to the local pub and Franky discovers a wad of heroin stuffed inside a soccer ball, things begin to change. He must defeat the evil cider-drinkers terrorising the neighbourhood, liberate the go-go dancers from their pimps, find out whatever happened to his and Myrtle’s miscarried child, help his assistant librarian find true love, and free himself from Myrtle and her evil cohort Ida.
This is an extremely localised story, in which the miserable lives of The Avenue’s inhabitants are exposed. I found the relationships between men and women most striking, with women near universally being portrayed as aggressive (man-hating lesbians Ida and Myrtle), deceitful (go-go dancer Judy and her drug-dealing mother), or cynical nymphomaniacs (terminally-ill Noreen).
The men, on the other hand, tend to come across as the helpless victims of feminine wiles: Franky’s father and one of his neighbours completely unable to cope with the deaths of their wives; the assistant librarian Michael naively caught in Judy’s toils; and Franky himself trapped in endless servitude to Myrtle.
It’s as if the men, unable to deal with life, have handed control to the women who either fail to take them into any further consideration, or ultimately abandon them through death.
I have observed this underlying hostility between the genders in Ireland for many years, and it was interesting to see it come through in a novel. Of course, Franky ultimately finds his backbone, turning a tale that is otherwise grim ultimately triumphal.
The Avenue is a very well written and well-produced novel, steering clear of both misery memoir and nostalgic glorification, and the narrator Franky has an utterly credible voice. It was pretty page-turning and struck me as a much better portrayal of Irish life in transition from traditional to modern than many a more self-consciously reminiscent tale.
If you want to see the world your Irish contemporaries are coming from, you really could do a lot worse than The Avenue. I’d be inclined to take it over many a celebrated bestseller.

“Without going in to detail about the story line too much, what James Lawless has done with this literary piece it to put in to sharp focus the perception and realities of life and surroundings in suburban lifestyles compared to those of the inner cities. As you read, you will discover what the reality is and it is not the reality many people thought it would be before moving out of the city in to such a ‘better’ location.

The main character, Francis, is caught up in a marriage that has not died but has lost so much meaning as his wife’s mental state has changed over the years, becoming mean and withdrawn. His existence with her has become miserable to the point where the only way he sees as an escape is through stories and books, and being a librarian he has more than adequate escape routes at his disposal. In turn this helps to create an imaginary life and world inside his mind.

The writing is sublime and really does get the point across that the grass is not always greener on the other side and it sometimes takes a little more to find the life you dream about. It is a scary truth though and you may be surprised, even a little disturbed with how accurately some of was depicted here relates to you and your close environment.

It also serves as a good reminder of how frail the human mind can be under certain circumstances and to me it was quite chilling in parts and Francis became a character that I could easily empathize with.

Top marks for wonderfully written novel with a slightly different topic from the “standard” mainstream novels, although it is a main-stream novel in its own right.”

“In James Lawless’ The Avenue, the differences in the mores between city and suburban life are explored through the use of weak men and strong women. The poor pathetic hero of the piece, library Francis Copeland, is haunted by a virago of a wife who was once a temptress but is now a shadow of herself, sunken into meanness by her own shrewishness. She and her friend Myrtle are constantly on the poor schlep who is also the “hero” of the piece.

His only escape is books and stories and to get away from the woman who is now making his life a misery he reads incessantly, often living in the worlds inside his head.

How different the city and the suburbs with their trees and open windows and young women, the husband think as he views a young women getting ready for a date or bed or something. She’s not dressed in much and our tortured husband finds that he has to live in the land of his mind again, just to get away.

That, perhaps most of all, in this beautifully written book, shows that while folks believe that the suburbs and suburban life, where the husband and wife end up, aren’t much different than city life. It’s just that the yards are bigger.”