“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, September 5, 2008

I Dream Of Gene-y

The long-threatened Irish crime writing series at the Books 2008 festival dawns dark, wet and stormy, and that’s as pathetic as I’m letting this fallacy get. For lo! Why would you read this oul’ rubbish when elsewhere there’s a veritable horde of proper writers – John Connolly, Arlene Hunt, Colin Bateman, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Adrian McKinty, Gene Kerrigan (right) and Declan Hughes – spraffing about why there’s been such a dramatic increase in the numbers of Irish crime writers? Quoth, for example, Gene Kerrigan:
“There’s been an upsurge in several kinds of Irish fiction .... Crime fiction is a small part of that. Perhaps it has something to do with increased confidence, a realisation that there are more possibilities than there used to be. Look around at what’s happening – you’re sitting in a pub and a guy walks in with a balaclava on, gun in hand – everyone knows that can happen in any Dublin pub any day of the week. How can you be a writer and not want to deal with that through fiction?”
  There’s one man whose acquaintance I’m looking forward to making this weekend, although maybe I’ll skip the traditional get-to-know-you pint if he suggests a swift one down his boozer. Anyhoos, for much more on the same theme, jog on over to the Evening Herald’s interweb malarkey

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