Aloysius the Great

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Aloysius the Great is the story of Aloysius Gogarty, a young alcoholic American professor, pressured into becoming resident director of his college's study-abroad program in England. He departs resentful of the task foisted upon him, and disturbed at having to leave behind a woman he's recently become infatuated with. In England, Gogarty finds himself on a runaway roller-coaster of rebellious students, drugs, sex and academic politics. He continues to court his inamorata from afar and his alcoholism spirals out of control. Gogarty gets help in coping with his kaleidoscopic problems from an Oxford counterpart who is a wickedly witty and stalwart companion. They consume epic quantities of alcohol while concocting outlandish schemes to address these challenges. Miraculously, Gogarty not only survives this mayhem, but emerges a hero and crowns his achievements by coming to grips with his alcoholism. Gogarty's transatlantic courting also yields surprising results.Aloysius the Great is a treasure trove for admirers of James Joyce. Most of its chapters parallel episodes in Joyce's Ulysses. Many of its characters come from Ulysses and/or individuals significant in Joyce's life. Words and phrases from Ulysses (all within the public domain) are sprinkled harmoniously throughout the text and the reader is treated to a savory sampling of Joyce's prose. A number of novels drawing on classics of literary fiction have recently achieved critical acclaim. In this sense, Aloysius the Great is akin to such works as McBride's A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing (Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning (Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude) and O'Neill's The Dog (Kafka's The Trial).