The Better Maker ...

... last night I finished Elberry's novel. It is quite good, very well-written, surprisingly well-plotted (it did not turn out as I had expected), and strangely affecting.
The narrative alternates between Italy - where our hero, Patrick Sadler, having been expelled from university, has arranged to spend the summer as a dishwasher - and the university from which he has been expelled. The university is called Runnkirk and apparently is somewhere in the northeast of England, since references are made to Geordies, who, I gather, may be found in Tyneside (Patrick has one noticeably bad encounter with them). The story relates the events leading up to Patrick's explusion.
Patrick has a schoolboy crush on a fellow undergraduate called Polly Church, but wins genuine affection and more from his tutor, Sini Kaattari, who is Finnish. One of the plot lines has to do with the emails that Patrick, using another fellow's name, sends Polly during his time in Italy; this gets tied up rather amusingly- and surprisingly - at the end.
Most of the interaction is between Patrick and a select group of weird friends, notably Jonah, called the Viking, and Billy, called the Saint. There is also a horrible young woman called Agnes. Some of the book is laugh-out-loud funny, and Patrick's often absurd conversations with Jonah can be delightfully bizarre:

"I imagine things get quite tense at home," Patrick said as Jonah botched the tea. "A religiously divided household."
"Wrong. Every night, my parents sit in the living room and listen to Leonard Cohen and argue logically about religion, and then insult each other. They are both highly intelligent, so it was good entertainment for me and Nick."
"This is your brother?"
"Yes. He likes to be called Nick. Jonah thrust a cup of badly-made tea at Patrick. They returned to the Manhunter shrine.
"What's his real name?"
Jonah tugged his tramp beard. "Hmm. Job"
"Job?"
"He prefers to be called Nick."

The burlesque quality of much that goes on serves to highlight the occasional, and very effective, bits of lyricism, as when Jonah and Patrick visit the local cathedral:

Jonah opened the heavy north door with some difficulty. It was nearly deserted inside. Grey stone and grey light. A ceiling halfway to God. Whispers and footsteps echoing and then eaten by the vaulting silence. A few believers sitting or kneeling at the wooden pews. Stained glass windows glowing like rainbow embers in the grey stone. A great quietness.

But what makes The Better Maker so effective is that it deals with a subject rarely addressed in fiction: Young men's feelings of tenderness for women. There are plenty of books - too many, in fact - chronicling some young fellow's desperate attempts to get laid. But the longing and unworthiness that many guys feel toward the maiden they adore from afar is rarely touched upon (I think of Alain-Fournier's Le grand Meaulnes). This book handles the matter remarkably well, achieving just the right blend of the comic and the pathetic.
I discussed this with a former colleague recently and we agreed that not only would many young men see themselves reflected in Patrick (as might some older dudes) , but many young women would likely be intrigued as well. A shrewd publisher could market this book into a sensation, I think.