“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Friday, October 12, 2007

“More Brimstone, Vicar?”

Mia Gallagher’s Hellfire, published by Penguin at the beginning of summer, somehow managed to slip under the Crime Always Pays radar, for which dereliction of duty a number of radar-manning elves (radar-elving elves?) have been slathered in honey and staked out over an anthill. For lo! T’would appear Ms Gallagher has written something of a modern Irish classic! A first-person narrative of junk addiction in a Dublin inner-city ghetto, delivered in the local argot, it’s been garnering the kind of raves that are but a hairsbreadth from rants, to wit: “The gamble Gallagher takes - to insist on the redemptive power of story through one restricted voice and over so many pages - pays off. That’s an extraordinary ambition. A grand achievement, too,” says Niall Griffiths at Guardian Unlimited, while the Irish Emigrant made it their Book of the Week: “Ms Gallagher’s debut novel is a tour de force, an immensely powerful story written with an honesty that is both shocking and deeply affecting.” And the resolutely restrained Sunday Business Post was particularly moved. Quoth Alex Meehan: “The hell of the addict’s existence is rendered normal through Lucy’s eyes and it is horrible to witness. That we care so much speaks highly of a character drawn well with a believable narrative. This book could have been about the ugliness of heroin but instead it’s about the beauty of hope.” Dare we finish this post with an exultant “Mama Mia!”? Lawks, we do!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hellfire is the most harrowing but most moving book Ive ever read- I would thoroughly reccomend it.