Trevor, a film-school dropout from Dublin, signs on as companion to Ed, a rich, wheelchair-bound New Yorker. A bizarre, mutual-dependency pact is ignited and an odyssey into the mind of an off-kilter, rambunctious Irishman begins. The Companion tells a story of obsession and control in which the dynamics of love and patience are tested to breaking point and beyond. Upbeat, defiant, dark and morally ambiguous, it sifts through family secrets and lies, and discloses the survival codes of Manhattan. This Irish take on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest develops into one of those rare, perversely elegiac novels that lodge in the mind. Long after the last page has been turned.