Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas Kennedy

Beneath the Neon Egg by Thomas Kennedy

Beneath the Neon Egg is a novel of jazz, violence, sex, death, love, and the underbelly of life, set in the low light of a Copenhagen winter. It is the story of Patrick Bluett, a forty-three-year-old Irish--American in Denmark, divorced and navigating his relationship with his college-age children, searching for life in a new country. It is also the story of his neighbor, a man in a similar circumstance who becomes his friend-and becomes entangled with a Russian prostitute.

The novel borrows its four-part structure from John Coltrane's majestic jazz symphony A Love Supreme, which Patrick Bluett listens to as he gazes out the window at the frozen streets of his adopted city, unaware of events in the apartment across the hall, and unaware of the consequences his friend will meet-or will, perhaps, escape.

The final novel of Thomas E. Kennedy's acclaimed Copenhagen Quartet-four independent novels about the seasons and souls of Copenhagen-Beneath the Neon Egg cements Kennedy's reputation as a literary revelation.

Thomas E. Kennedy was born in New York City and has lived in Copenhagen for over two decades. He has written over twenty books, mostly published by small presses, including novels, short stories, and essays. He has won numerous awards, including the Eric Hoffer Award in 2007 for In the Company of Angels (Danish ed.), the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Prize for short stories, and the National Magazine Award in 2008. In the Company of Angels is one of four novels comprising the Copenhagen Quartet, which Duff Brenna called a masterpiece. Kennedy wrote the Quartet in English and translated it himself for Danish publication. The Quartet was also published in a small Irish edition. Kennedy is a member of Fairleigh Dickinson University's Global Virtual Faculty. His Web site is www.thomasekennedy.com.