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The Tenderloin
An electrifying debut coming of age story set in San Francisco during the dotcom boom
I had seen the Internet recently, in a café on Haight and Steiner that had a grey coin-operated computer terminal in the corner. One guy was using it to read what another guy was saying about some computer thing. And another Irish friend of a friend had it in their apartment when Milo and I called over one night, and he tried to show it to us, but it seemed he was using it to talk to a guy just like him about some computer game and I couldn't understand why he didn't just pick up the phone. But at least I knew about it.
It's 1995 and Evan has embarked on an adventure that will change his life—leaving his Dublin home for the rolling hills and fog-swept bays of San Francisco. Between the Internet revolution and the rave culture, young naive Evan is completely clueless about how to succeed; but he's determined to stumble on, looking for work, looking for love, and, ultimately, looking to define himself. Soon, however, the troubles of his past catch up with him, and everything begins to unravel.
I had seen the Internet recently, in a café on Haight and Steiner that had a grey coin-operated computer terminal in the corner. One guy was using it to read what another guy was saying about some computer thing. And another Irish friend of a friend had it in their apartment when Milo and I called over one night, and he tried to show it to us, but it seemed he was using it to talk to a guy just like him about some computer game and I couldn't understand why he didn't just pick up the phone. But at least I knew about it.
It's 1995 and Evan has embarked on an adventure that will change his life—leaving his Dublin home for the rolling hills and fog-swept bays of San Francisco. Between the Internet revolution and the rave culture, young naive Evan is completely clueless about how to succeed; but he's determined to stumble on, looking for work, looking for love, and, ultimately, looking to define himself. Soon, however, the troubles of his past catch up with him, and everything begins to unravel.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
John Butler
273 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
writer and illustrator - lives in Kent, South East England.
writer and illustrator - lives in Kent, South East England.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 30, 2024
I read this book and almost instantly forgot it all even the reading of it to the extent that I had marked it as a book to buy. Thankfully I read some notes I made at the time;
'Novel, OK, but lacking'
Which not only ensured this came off my to buy list but also made me question my two stars but I allowed my Irish sentimentality to remain in gear.
It is probably not a bad novel but I doubt if it is good one and I will not reread it to check opinion unless someone really convincing changes my mind.
'Novel, OK, but lacking'
Which not only ensured this came off my to buy list but also made me question my two stars but I allowed my Irish sentimentality to remain in gear.
It is probably not a bad novel but I doubt if it is good one and I will not reread it to check opinion unless someone really convincing changes my mind.
June 30, 2017
I just can't finish this book. I stopped half-way. What in the world withe the drugs, the alcohol the unfinished sex, the dick sucking. Why is this Evan so pathetic. I don't know for those who enjoyed this kinda thing. It contains too many unnecessary details and it doesn't help at all.
March 18, 2021
Young Evan along with his friend Milo leave Dublin for San Francisco, it's 1994 and the Internet is just beginning into take off, and Evan just might become a part of it. But his friend Milo opts out and takes to the woods leaving him on his own, and Evan can't keep taking advantage of friends' hospitably, he needs to find work to support himself, find an apartment of his own.
When by chance he meets Sam Couples, who runs the rapidly expanding Internet company ForwardSlash, his fortunes seem set to change. A new job and along with it a new life seem to beckon. But Evan seems to be infatuated with Sam, whose beguiling come hither smile he hope he is not miss-reading, stirring up feelings that Evan is not quite sure how to handle. The situation is not helped following a disastrous intimate encounter initiated by Róisín, Milo's girlfriend who appears on the scene, confusing the virgin Evan even more. Thoughts of acting on his feelings for the much older Sam start to occupy his mind until he eventually takes the initiative - the results lead him to his ultimate decision about San Francisco.
The Tenderloin is quite simply beautifully written, reading it is an absolute pleasure simply for the flow of words and the attention to detail. But that is not to say that I don't have a problem with it, and the problem is that quite often I had difficulty following the thread of the story. Evan's narrative jumps about in time and place, and it is often not clear how things fit together. That quotation marks are not used for the dialogue, and that the speech is invariable unassigned is another issue (at least it is this way on the proof copy I read).
Despite the problems I did enjoy the book, Evan is an appealing character who engenders our sympathy, or maybe for many of us our empathy, all the more so because of his shortcomings. This together with the poetic writing and touches of humour make this a worthy read.
(pre-publication review copy)
When by chance he meets Sam Couples, who runs the rapidly expanding Internet company ForwardSlash, his fortunes seem set to change. A new job and along with it a new life seem to beckon. But Evan seems to be infatuated with Sam, whose beguiling come hither smile he hope he is not miss-reading, stirring up feelings that Evan is not quite sure how to handle. The situation is not helped following a disastrous intimate encounter initiated by Róisín, Milo's girlfriend who appears on the scene, confusing the virgin Evan even more. Thoughts of acting on his feelings for the much older Sam start to occupy his mind until he eventually takes the initiative - the results lead him to his ultimate decision about San Francisco.
The Tenderloin is quite simply beautifully written, reading it is an absolute pleasure simply for the flow of words and the attention to detail. But that is not to say that I don't have a problem with it, and the problem is that quite often I had difficulty following the thread of the story. Evan's narrative jumps about in time and place, and it is often not clear how things fit together. That quotation marks are not used for the dialogue, and that the speech is invariable unassigned is another issue (at least it is this way on the proof copy I read).
Despite the problems I did enjoy the book, Evan is an appealing character who engenders our sympathy, or maybe for many of us our empathy, all the more so because of his shortcomings. This together with the poetic writing and touches of humour make this a worthy read.
(pre-publication review copy)
November 19, 2012
Really disappointed by this book. In parts it had great potential but the characters were not very likeable which made me not particularly care how their various issues were resolved. A vaguely enjoyable read at best.
January 11, 2013
A strangely uneventful novel. A young Irish guy goes to San Fransisco, hangs out at a few clubs and the Folsom Street fair, gets a job, looses it and doesn't have a very successful sex life. I can't see the point.
January 24, 2018
It has flashes of a coming of age story, it has rare funny moments and even the odd line that’s almost poetic like in its form. Unfortunately, it has little coherence and the plot can be incredibly tough to follow at times. The main character is interesting but other characters are often fairly dull or stereotypical. The ending is incredibly dissatisfying. Shame, it had promise early on.
May 23, 2025
Maybe a 2.5. I enjoyed some of the scenes but as an overall story I'm not sure what the point was. There was no real character development just a chronical of the pretty mediocre life of a pretty mediocre character. The writing wasn't very bad but in a "coming of age" story you expect the protagonist to get somewhere, which he sadly didn't.
February 27, 2018
I did not like it. I thought the story was boring. I skimmed a lot, did not care about the characters and in the end was left feeling disappointed. The blurb in my opinion promised more but did not deliver.
January 21, 2022
A good coming of age story with no ending. Evan's story just stops before an epilogue about another character and her alcoholic father. I didn't care for it; it has nothing to do with the rest of the book.
February 10, 2018
I found this novel to be dull. Was not very taken with the story line unfortunately. I found the main character tedious.
July 12, 2019
Ehhhhh, this is probably a 2.5 star rating to be honest! Nothing much happened, I didn’t connect with the character, there wasn’t much of an ending as such. It just ended and that was that.
February 25, 2015
This book reminded me in a lot of ways of Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.
Young Irish person leaves the safe familiarity of home to go to America, a new and amazing place and discovers themselves along the way. Where Brooklyn is set in the 1950's and an Ireland that is very much behind the times, The Tenderloin takes place in the mid 90's, a time where Ireland was on the brink of something big, but America still had that appeal of being different and exciting.
Evan heads for San Francisco with best friend Milo to strike out on their own. The internet is just about to take off and computers are where the money is at. Milo however has no intentions of being tied down to an office job and pretty swiftly takes off with the "Dead Heads" to live in a van and follow The Grateful Dead on tour. It doesn't take Evan long to realise that what at home had made Milo seem cool and confident, in the US made him a waster and not much of a friend.
Evan works his way up through an internet start up company, FowardSlash, and things seem to be working out well. Then Róisín, Milo's on/off girlfriend from home arrives in San Fran, and Milo reappears and things slowly, and then very quickly, start to go south for Evan. It soon becomes clear that there is something more that Evan has been running from, and as his past collides with his present it becomes impossible for him to keep running from it and his attempts to do so lead to him losing everything. (This is not a spoiler, he makes it clear in the first few pages that everything has gone to shit.)
Where I found Brooklyn to be slightly boring, and not much really happened, The Tenderloin has a clear story to tell, it's only a year in Evan's life but it's very much a full story. It's darkly funny at times as Evan finds humour in some of his lowest moments, but it's quite moving at times too, as Evan struggles on and loses friendships and himself.
The epilogue I found very interesting, I won't say why, but it changes the focus from what was going on in the book yet manages to wrap up Evan's story but shed light on some other things too and ultimately fleshes out some parts that seemed irrelevant while reading.
Young Irish person leaves the safe familiarity of home to go to America, a new and amazing place and discovers themselves along the way. Where Brooklyn is set in the 1950's and an Ireland that is very much behind the times, The Tenderloin takes place in the mid 90's, a time where Ireland was on the brink of something big, but America still had that appeal of being different and exciting.
Evan heads for San Francisco with best friend Milo to strike out on their own. The internet is just about to take off and computers are where the money is at. Milo however has no intentions of being tied down to an office job and pretty swiftly takes off with the "Dead Heads" to live in a van and follow The Grateful Dead on tour. It doesn't take Evan long to realise that what at home had made Milo seem cool and confident, in the US made him a waster and not much of a friend.
Evan works his way up through an internet start up company, FowardSlash, and things seem to be working out well. Then Róisín, Milo's on/off girlfriend from home arrives in San Fran, and Milo reappears and things slowly, and then very quickly, start to go south for Evan. It soon becomes clear that there is something more that Evan has been running from, and as his past collides with his present it becomes impossible for him to keep running from it and his attempts to do so lead to him losing everything. (This is not a spoiler, he makes it clear in the first few pages that everything has gone to shit.)
Where I found Brooklyn to be slightly boring, and not much really happened, The Tenderloin has a clear story to tell, it's only a year in Evan's life but it's very much a full story. It's darkly funny at times as Evan finds humour in some of his lowest moments, but it's quite moving at times too, as Evan struggles on and loses friendships and himself.
The epilogue I found very interesting, I won't say why, but it changes the focus from what was going on in the book yet manages to wrap up Evan's story but shed light on some other things too and ultimately fleshes out some parts that seemed irrelevant while reading.
August 6, 2013
The strength of The Tenderloin lies in the writing, which is zippy and funny and smart, full of pop culture references, wry observations and sharp dialogue. Girls are described as "Anistonian", in a slick reference to the Friends character. People talk in short, smart, pithy conversations, say things like "Boo ya," and "Feel me?", and the spirit of the times is constantly sketched out using markers like the OJ trial.
There are a number of weaknesses in the book though. It is frequently unclear, characters are introduced, not really described properly, and then briefly reappear again later when you have forgotten who they are. And even the title is never actually explained in the text of the book, a trip to Wikipedia is necessary to find out what relevance The Tenderloin has to the actual story. Unexplained, the title just hangs there as a needless mystery that is not very interesting when it is solved.
The biggest weakness though, is in the story and the central character. It is laid out like a coming of age story, though in fact Evan doesn't actually mature or grow at all. He doesn't seem to learn any important thing about himself in his time in San Francisco, and I found it difficult to even care about his development towards the end of the novel.
The Tenderloin is a vibrantly written, funny, smart book, that is let down a little by a weak protagonist and a narrative that doesn't really progress.
Full review here...
http://watchingandreadingandwriting.b...
There are a number of weaknesses in the book though. It is frequently unclear, characters are introduced, not really described properly, and then briefly reappear again later when you have forgotten who they are. And even the title is never actually explained in the text of the book, a trip to Wikipedia is necessary to find out what relevance The Tenderloin has to the actual story. Unexplained, the title just hangs there as a needless mystery that is not very interesting when it is solved.
The biggest weakness though, is in the story and the central character. It is laid out like a coming of age story, though in fact Evan doesn't actually mature or grow at all. He doesn't seem to learn any important thing about himself in his time in San Francisco, and I found it difficult to even care about his development towards the end of the novel.
The Tenderloin is a vibrantly written, funny, smart book, that is let down a little by a weak protagonist and a narrative that doesn't really progress.
Full review here...
http://watchingandreadingandwriting.b...
March 20, 2016
This is one of those coming-of-age stories with some cool pop culture references during the booming of the internet. I feel like this book is trying to be one of those modern books that is trying to act like a classic book (i don't even know what i'm saying right now). I'm sorry.
The Story is about Irish best-friends Milo, Evan and Roisin who decided to have a fresh start at San Francisco. Milo, simply wants to enjoy life, but Evan wants to get a job and earn money for a living. With different interest, they get separated and face different challenges such as: paying rents, discovering their sexuality, facing strange people at work and even driving an automatic car! (lol i can relate).
What I liked: I liked how the author puts pop culture references and how he describes workplace in these small start-ups. He understands young people. That's all I can say.
What I disliked: At times, some random characters are introduced and they come into later chapters again. This is kinda hard because they are supposed to be one of those characters that only appear once, but turns out they are quite important.
The dialogues, I mean..why use dash (-) as a quotation mark? I don't get it. Does it symbolise something? Is Butler a hipster writer? Cuz quotation is too mainstream??? Idk
The characters. Wow. I didn't even like any of them. Evan is so selfish and Milo doesn't even care about anyone.
Overall, this book was just not my cup of tea but it has a good setting, I suppose. I can imagine it as one of those movies that Tumblr people would enjoy.
The Story is about Irish best-friends Milo, Evan and Roisin who decided to have a fresh start at San Francisco. Milo, simply wants to enjoy life, but Evan wants to get a job and earn money for a living. With different interest, they get separated and face different challenges such as: paying rents, discovering their sexuality, facing strange people at work and even driving an automatic car! (lol i can relate).
What I liked: I liked how the author puts pop culture references and how he describes workplace in these small start-ups. He understands young people. That's all I can say.
What I disliked: At times, some random characters are introduced and they come into later chapters again. This is kinda hard because they are supposed to be one of those characters that only appear once, but turns out they are quite important.
The dialogues, I mean..why use dash (-) as a quotation mark? I don't get it. Does it symbolise something? Is Butler a hipster writer? Cuz quotation is too mainstream??? Idk
The characters. Wow. I didn't even like any of them. Evan is so selfish and Milo doesn't even care about anyone.
Overall, this book was just not my cup of tea but it has a good setting, I suppose. I can imagine it as one of those movies that Tumblr people would enjoy.
March 6, 2012
No, this isn't a book about steaks. The Tenderloin is a neighbourhood in San Francisco (the book didn't tell me that though, I had to research it - the effort I go to to write these Amazon reviews!) and if you knew that then you might like to read this book because it's shoehorned with San Fran references.
The story follows Evan as he settles in San Fran having come over from Ireland with his friend Milo.
Immediately as I read the book I was hit with a zany writing style where the story fritted from one bit to the next with little joining up in between. Perhaps it was written in bits before being pieced together? Or maybe the author wanted the text to be a bit wayward just like Evan was.
There were some things I didn't like about this book like the lack of attributing dialogue to characters making three-way conversations a little more difficult than they needed to be and the way several characters would said to look like some person that I had never heard of.
But on the other hand there were good things about this book like the storytelling was good, although as previously said I felt they were individual stories pieced together rather than a whole plot, and there was an unconventional ending where you think Evan will resolve his issues and it'll all be ok when actually it doesn't happen like that in real life, and a good epilogue where the story is seen through the eyes of another character.
The story follows Evan as he settles in San Fran having come over from Ireland with his friend Milo.
Immediately as I read the book I was hit with a zany writing style where the story fritted from one bit to the next with little joining up in between. Perhaps it was written in bits before being pieced together? Or maybe the author wanted the text to be a bit wayward just like Evan was.
There were some things I didn't like about this book like the lack of attributing dialogue to characters making three-way conversations a little more difficult than they needed to be and the way several characters would said to look like some person that I had never heard of.
But on the other hand there were good things about this book like the storytelling was good, although as previously said I felt they were individual stories pieced together rather than a whole plot, and there was an unconventional ending where you think Evan will resolve his issues and it'll all be ok when actually it doesn't happen like that in real life, and a good epilogue where the story is seen through the eyes of another character.
July 9, 2012
Part coming of age novel, part love-affair with the city of San Francisco, and part skew-eyed exploration of how of the Internet changed human existence in ways we could barely imagine back in 1995, The Tenderloin charts that traumatic territory between childhood and adulthood when the nest has been flown and life on one's own terms must be negotiated.
Sexually inexperienced and a follower rather than a leader, Evan has gone along for the ride from Dublin to San Francisco with is unreliable mate, Milo, trying to find work, a place to live, and, hopefully, loose his virginity along the way. But life in the dot-com fast lane isn't handing him out any free favors, and for every step forward Evan takes, his habit of putting himself in ridiculously sticky situations, sets him two steps back.
Butler's writing is perfectly pitched - he has the ability to get to the nub of characters with the lightest of brushstrokes, and his fine eye for comedy of errors makes for some excruciating events in Evan's odyssey. This isn't a run-off-the-mill coming of age novel, it doesn't resolve itself with easy answers, but the vulnerable heart of Evan's dysfunction, which is also at the heart of his friend Milo's disaffection, gives it a depth rarely seen in Irish novels dealing with sex and sexuality.
Sexually inexperienced and a follower rather than a leader, Evan has gone along for the ride from Dublin to San Francisco with is unreliable mate, Milo, trying to find work, a place to live, and, hopefully, loose his virginity along the way. But life in the dot-com fast lane isn't handing him out any free favors, and for every step forward Evan takes, his habit of putting himself in ridiculously sticky situations, sets him two steps back.
Butler's writing is perfectly pitched - he has the ability to get to the nub of characters with the lightest of brushstrokes, and his fine eye for comedy of errors makes for some excruciating events in Evan's odyssey. This isn't a run-off-the-mill coming of age novel, it doesn't resolve itself with easy answers, but the vulnerable heart of Evan's dysfunction, which is also at the heart of his friend Milo's disaffection, gives it a depth rarely seen in Irish novels dealing with sex and sexuality.
January 10, 2012
This novel was great in places, but overall I disliked the characters and was totally unsatisfied by the lack of any resolution in the ending.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews