` Skippy & Ruprecht are having a doughnut-eating race one evening when Skippy turns violet & falls off his chair`. & so begins this epic, tragic, comic, brilliant novel set in & around Dublin`s Seabrook College for Boys. Principally concerning the lives, loves, mistakes & triumphs of overweight maths-whiz Ruprecht Van Doren & his roommate Daniel ` Skippy` Juster, it features a frisbee-throwing siren called Lori, the joys (and horrors) of first love, the use & blatant misuse of prescription drugs, Carl (the official school psychopath), & various attempts to unravel string theory.. .while at the same time exploring the very deepest mysteries of the human heart.