Down to the Dirt unabridged audio edition by Joel Thomas Hynes Read by Joel Thomas Hynes (aka Joel Hynes), Sherry White and Jonny Harris Originally published by Killick Press in 2004; reprinted by HarperCollins 2005 Down to the Dirt is Joel Thomas Hynes' Percy Janes Award-winning first novel. Told in the voices of various characters and from first and third-person perspectives, Down to the Dirt follows the hard-drinking, hard-living Keith Kavanagh from his sexual initiation with an older woman in the small community of his childhood to his Quixotic quest for meaning in the big city. Kavanagh is one of Canadian literature's most memorable and mesmerizing creations. He may appear hard as nails—a self-destructive hedonist, a dynamo of crackling energy and imminent violence—but at heart, he is (in the words of novelist Michael Crummey) “a troubled Holden Caulfield innocent" desperately searching for his place in a world that doesn't seem to want or need him. Hynes’ great achievement is in maintaining a convincing balance between tenderness and brutality as he guides the seemingly hopeless Kavanagh from one scene of comic chaos into another. Down to the Dirt is a lit fuse burning with anarchic energy. Down to the Dirt on Myspace.com Audio Reviews: "Picture a teenaged outcast in Newfoundland and his two closest friends—they all love to talk dirty, each with a somewhat skewed Irish accent. This is why the audio version of Hynes’s first novel (really linked stories) is more than welcome. Hynes, also an actor, narrates in protagonist Keith Kavanagh’s voice, joined by Sherry White and Johnny Harris. If anyone has ever wondered what’s going through the minds of those eternal bad boys and the girls they hook up with, this sensitive portrait is a good place to begin. Hynes’s clipped style, taking stories to a breaking point, then dropping them cold, before too much emotion sets in, works very well." AudioFile Magazine Book Reviews: "Hynes captures [dialogue] masterfully...Raunchy, humorous and energetic...A gritty, moving portrait of growing up - or trying to, anyway." Publisher's Weekly "Joel Hynes is the best young voice in years" David Adams Richards "...scary, sexy, and funny, sometimes all three at once. It's a hell of a ride." Michael Crummey, author of River Thieves