Fun and Games
An Observer Best Debut Novelist of 2025
‘One of the most exciting writers working in Ireland today’ SALLY ROONEY
‘Lively, bighearted … an utter joy to read’ COLIN BARRETT
‘Truly gorgeous … a writer of immense talent’ MICHAEL MAGEE
‘Funny and heartbreaking’ FERDIA LENNON
A stunning debut novel following a teenage boy as he comes of age on the west coast of Ireland, from the author of the acclaimed story collection Pure Gold.
Seventeen-year-old John Masterson has no idea what he wants. It’s his last summer on the small island where he has grown up and he should be enjoying the weeks until his exam results come through. Instead, he’s working mind-numbing shifts at the local hotel and trying to keep his head down after his mother’s nude sext to another man was leaked to the whole island.
As John joins the local senior football team, gets caught up in fights and parties, and embarks on a tentative relationship with his slightly older co-worker Amber that he feels both proud and ashamed of, he can almost pretend that this summer will last forever. But soon John must face up to the choices before him: to stay or leave, to stand out or fit in, and whether to love and let himself be loved, despite or perhaps because of, the flaws that make us all human.
Fun and Games is a darkly comic, beautifully crafted debut novel that is full of feeling both harsh and tender. It takes in social class and its firm borders, manhood and its frailties, family and, of course, love.
‘A charming, funny and sensitive novel’ NICOLE FLATTERY
‘Heartbreaking and raucous and filled with love’ AIDAN COTTRELL-BOYCE
‘A remarkable depiction of burgeoning masculinity’ REBECCA WATSON
”'A funny and frank coming-of age-drama, propelled by the heart-swelling comic agony of the protagonist’s incapacity to act without second-guessing the consequences for his social rank” - Observer, 'The best new novelists for 2025’
”'One of the most exciting writers working in Ireland today” - Sally Rooney, author of Intermezzo
'One of the funniest novels I've read in years. John Patrick McHugh writes with an unerringly acute, mercilessly affectionate eye about the chaotic mores and inescapable entanglements of small town teenage life. This is a lively, bighearted coming of age novel that is an utter joy to read' Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses -
'Fun and Games beautifully captures that complicated transitory period between youth and young manhood, and the external pressures one faces … A truly gorgeous novel from a writer of immense talent' Michael Magee, author of Close to Home -
”'Lyrical and at turns funny and heartbreaking, Fun and Games is a startlingly compelling evocation of youthful passion and the often-fraught bonds of family and friendship … bittersweet and brilliant” - Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits
”'Fun and Games is a charming, funny and sensitive novel … John Patrick McHugh has a gift for depicting interior life” - Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special
”'A completely candid and totally believable tale of late adolescence, with all of its tiny tragedies and tiny triumphs. Heartbreaking and raucous and filled with love, Fun and Games is a joy unconfined” - Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork
‘A remarkable depiction of burgeoning masculinity … John Patrick McHugh paints a portrait of a young man with vulnerability, compassion, and an illuminating and necessary kind of logic' Rebecca Watson, author of I Will Crash -
”'Bighearted and boisterous, bursting with life … a gorgeous, aching whirligig of a novel” - Colin Walsh, author of Kala
”'McHugh writes with exceptional honesty, nuance and humour” - Caoilinn Hughes, author of The Alternatives