“Michael Deagler is the real deal. . . .This is a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer.”
Don’t worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He’s sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances—if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself in the throng of adulthood.
Monk’s haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing better than him—and most of them aren’t even doing that well. His run-ins with former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers challenge his version of events past and present, revealing that recovery is not the happy ending he’d expected, only a fraught next chapter.
Like a sober, millennial Jesus’ Son, Michael Deagler’s debut novel is the poignant confession of a recovering addict adrift in the fragmenting landscape of America’s middle class. Shot through with humor, hubris, and hard-earned insight, Early Sobrieties charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.
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“Illuminating and moving—Deagler’s debut pulls in a reader with such an inviting clarity. There’s something about the honesty in this voice that creates a lot of room for the reader to connect, imagine, and feel.”
“A luminous and observant debut about all the strangeness of returning to the places that formed you. The prose is spectacular.”
“Emotionally raw, often jaded, but still full of wonder, EARLY SOBRIETIES is an incredibly funny and tender story. Michael Deagler does a fantastic job of bringing into relief the absurdities of being a young adult and trying to find your place in a changing world.”
“Sharp and self-aware, with deep insight packed into no-fuss prose: a quarter-life-crisis tale for the ages.”
“EARLY SOBRIETIES is a miracle, a debut of startling beauty, grit, and grace. Cutting into the glow of its lyricism and humor, the awesome glare of undeceived vision illuminates every page.”
“Funny, insightful, and, above all, well-written, EARLY SOBRIETIES is a pleasure to read. Deagler manages to tell the story of his bewildered and rudderless protagonist in a way that is not rudderless at all, but rather precise and meaningful.”
“This is a funny, sad but — first of all — incredibly soulful novel. It offers an unflinching account of the life which has to be lived in the aftermath of a change of heart. Here is a narrator who is clear-eyed and yet sun-dazzled; born again but as an actual newborn. It will literally make you laugh and it will literally make you cry.”
“A young man surfaces from the depths of alcoholism in Deagler’s pitch-perfect debut novel . . . a wizened and wry outlook on the rapidly transforming city . . . This is a standout.”
“The witty, fiercely intelligent story of a young alcoholic in the fragile early days of sobriety . . . Wry, sharp, charming, resistant to neat closures and easy turns—a debut of enormous promise.”