A Farewell to Prague, by Desmond Hogan (Faber, £5.99 in UK)

The title of this novel appears to be deliberately inconsequent, like the laid back style, since Prague plays only a minor role in the proceedings. It is written mainly in diary form and the narrator, a young Irishman, moves around Europe and the Southern states of America seemingly as the mood or personal whim takes him. People and places come and go, London, Berlin, St Petersburg, homosexual encounters take place from time to time with little apparent aftertaste, and there are periodic flashbacks to life in Ireland. Readable, but hardly compelling the characters are vague and sketchy, even wraithlike, and the book in the end seems to lack organic growth or any true centre of interest. But then, that may be just the effect intended, to suggest the random rhythm of life.