A Tiger in Eden

Beautiful beaches, sexy young backpackers, cheap drinks: southern Thailand in the mid- 1990s is the perfect place for a holiday.

It’s also the perfect place for Billy—Loyalist hard man, NO SURRENDER chest tattoo, on the run from the Belfast police—to lie low. He’s turning away from a life of crime, but isn’t sure where to go.

A series of fights and one-night stands helps put his troubles out of mind for a while. But when Billy ends up in a Buddhist retreat he learns that no matter how far you travel, your past will always catch up with you.

A heady ride of sex, drugs and bar-room brawls, A Tiger in Eden is a raucous debut novel in the anti-tradition of Trainspotting and The Beach.

Listen to Nick Earls recommend A Tiger in Eden on ABC Brisbane radio, in an interview to celebrate the National Year of Reading.

Listen to an interview with Chris Flynn on 3CR, talking about his debut novel, A Tiger in Eden.

Listen to Chris Flynn’s interview on the 4ZZZ Book Club.

Chris Flynn gave a hilarious reading from A Tiger in Eden at a Debut Monday session at the Wheeler Centre. Read a blog post about it here.

Praise for A Tiger in Eden:

‘A brilliant mix of hilarious and confronting that keeps refusing to be like any other book you’ve ever read. Dropping a Belfast hard man in paradise is an act of storytelling genius, and every word of the writing backs it to the hilt.’

Nick Earls

‘A Tiger in Eden is the business: brutal, funny and surprisingly uplifting. You won’t read a better debut novel this year.’

James Bradley

‘The voice of Flynn’s Billy is inviting and hilarious from the first. He’s a joy to read.’

Adam Levin

‘What happens when a cashed-up Belfast hard man has nothing to do but kick around Thailand and have sex with tourists for the foreseeable future? Well, pretty much what you’d expect. But not quite. The clever thing about Melbourne writer Chris Flynn‘s debut novel is the way he reverses the old trope of events conspiring to throw the protagonist’s mundane life into chaos.’ Read the full review here.

The Thousands

‘Filthy, funny and often poignant, A Tiger in Eden is a cracking first novel by Melbourne writer Chris Flynn.’

mX (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane)

‘If ever Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) had a love child, then A Tiger In Eden would be the result. The debut novel by Melbourne journalist Chris Flynn is brutal, hilarious and wholly surprising.’

Daily Telegraph

‘Destined for immediate cult status, A Tiger in Eden is the tale of Billy, a Northern Irish Loyalist in 1990s Thailand. Anchored by Billy’s unique narrative voice, this story of sex, drugs and beach parties almost amazingly transforms into a considered and moving meditation on belonging, and the true nature of love.’

Brisbane Sunday Mail

‘Billy joins the pantheon of likeable, repugnant characters as Flynn turns the inside of Billy’s head into a colloquial playground. It’s Billy’s voice that makes it possible for A Tiger in Eden to be both an involving story of a henchman’s self- discovery through sex, drugs and Buddhism, and a reflection on how people and places can shape, damage and fix us.’

Big Issue

‘Flynn’s triumph is in Billy’s voice. His story is a confessional, ironically for a Protestant. His narrative voice is unfiltered by the demands of fiction. This is a real hard man talking – all run-on sentences, expletives and anatomical fixation in language that is a blue as the Andaman Sea. It is a wild whirl of Roddy Doyle, James Kelman and Irvine Welsh, with no punches pulled. It is full of vibrant energy, pulse and earthily scatological humour…As a debut, A Tiger in Eden is impressive – hilarious, terrifying and raunchy…As a character…Billy is sensational. Under his macho carapace lies a mind troubled. He articulates this turmoil in a brutal, direct and funny patois. You won’t forget him.’

Sunday Star Times

‘Melbourne writer Chris Flynn fairly races out of the blocks with his debut novel A Tiger in Eden, placing a Northern Irish hardman down amongst the native population and tourists of Thailand for an inevitable journey out of sectarian and thuggish violence to peace, love and understanding. A potentially very unlikeable protagonist and pedestrian plot are saved by exciting use of language and even more thrilling passages of sustained sexual abandon.

‘Yes, the novel is filled with good sex well written – no easy feat. Set pieces are masterfully handled – an encounter on an island beach with a Dutch air hostess and another in a rundown hotel room with a passing Swedish backpacker are superbly sustained, lyrical and show just how exciting good fiction can be.’

Melbourne Review

‘A Tiger In Eden is brutal, affecting reading. Not because it’s gory, but because it shows without flinching the consequences of violence for everyone involved, from the victim to the witnesses. When we hit the final revelation of Billy’s past it’s a scene of abject and utter horror that will stick with you long after you’ve put the book on your shelf…This a fun, fast read with a emotional core that brings [it] up from what could have been just a hard man’s sex and violence holiday memoir to a satisfying and hopeful tale of redemption.’ Read the full review [here](http://books.scoop.co.nz/2012/04/05/review-a-tiger-in-eden-by-chris-flynn/).

Scoop Review of Books

‘Irishman-turned-Aussie Chris Flynn’s debut A Tiger in Eden is not for the faint- hearted, but persevere because the journey is more than worth the effort. Beyond the bombast and between the foulmouthed lines is the story of a young man’s spiritual awakening in a foreign land that will leave the reader both inspired and breathless…This is a narrative that in the wrong hands could have been much less – the latest Guy Ritchie blockbuster perhaps. But Flynn’s deft characterisation of Billy and his eye for contrasting beauty with ugliness take this novel to a higher level.’

Courier Mail