Book excerpt: It's 1963 in a country house in west Wicklow during the heady summer of JFK's visit to Ireland. Turbulence is in the air as Justin is locked in combat with his angry and inebriate father. A dark and poignant comedy unfolds and progresses to winter as Kennedy is assassinated and Justine ends his oedipal struggle and comes of age. Replete with the perennial tensions between native and settler, servant and master, Camelot and Leinster House, this poignant tale concerns identity and first love, and the pain of a knowing child living amongst aliens. Told with the panache of PG Wodehouse crossed with Caroline Blackwood, it conveys the spirit of a bygone age and the very present emotions of a fast-growing boy. It is a masterful debut novel.