“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

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Through Falling Glass, Darkly

It’s a personal thing, but reading an Adrian McKinty novel depresses the hell out of me these days. The latest offering, which I’m getting to a little late, is FALLING GLASS, which I read on holidays a couple of weeks ago. It’s a story about Killian, an enforcer and debt collector who takes on a well-paying job to find Rachel, the former wife of a wealthy Northern Ireland businessman, who has absconded with his two children. Naturally, things do not go swimmingly for Killian, in part because the woman has very good reasons for going on the run, but also because another man, a Russian veteran of the Chechen conflict, is also tracking her down. What gives the novel its heft, and sets it apart from a conventional chase-and-shoot narrative, is the fact that Killian is of Pavee origin, Pavees being an indigenous Irish minority also known as tinkers, itinerants and Travellers. They are not, Killian tells us, gypsies; the Pavee are a branch of the European Roma, and a people whose roots are buried deep in Irish history, despite their nomadic way of life.
  McKinty is a very fine writer, as many have pointed out before (he is currently on the longlist for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year for his previous offering, FIFTY GRAND), and he invests his hardboiled prose with a muscular poetry that lends itself to deliciously black humour (Chapter Six opens with the memorable line, “The place stank of dead Mexicans and no one was even dead yet.” (pg 91)). All of which would have made for an excellent crime novel, and the Pavee’s nomadic lifestyle provides a neat backdrop for Killian’s peripatetic wanderings; but as always with McKinty, there’s more: his novels are as much novels of ideas as they are page-turning thrillers, and here he provides a rare insight into the world of the Pavee, its traditions, mythologies and language. Moreover, Killian is a man striving to settle down, to leave behind both the wanderings of the Pavee and the world of crime. To this end he is currently studying at an Ulster university, studying architecture to be precise, a perverse choice for a man who was reared on the promise of the open road:
This is why we shrink from people. We Pavee. Why we don’t want their talk. Their hypocrisy and lies. We don’t want them breathing near us. Humans were never meant to be this close to one another. We weren’t meant to be in buildings. Architecture is based on a gigantic lie. Cities. We huddle for security, closer and closer until, like now, we are on top of one another. Stuck in these glass and steel and brick structures with all these other confused, unhappy people. (pg 206)
  Neatly juxtaposing Killian’s pursuit of Rachel with his internal journey towards some kind of rapprochement between his conflicting instincts, building tension all the while, FALLING GLASS is easily one of the finest novels of the year to date. That in itself is depressing, because as a writer, reading a great novel always serves to remind you of how far you have to travel yourself; but what’s truly depressing is that McKinty, despite being something of a byword for quality and class among a select group of aficionados, is nowhere as well known as most of his peers on the Theakston’s list, for example. I’ve long maintained that the fact that McKinty isn’t as recognisable a name, nor as bestselling, as the likes of Lee Child, Val McDermid or Mark Billingham, say, is proof positive that the current model of publishing is a joke, and not a particularly funny one.
  All of which aside, and taking it on its own merits, FALLING GLASS is a superb crime novel with a fascinating backdrop, the kind of page-turner that makes you want to stay your hand even as it reaches to turn the page. It should be Adrian McKinty’s break-out novel; but then, all of his novels should have been break-out novels. It’s a variation on the theme of no good deed goes unpunished, certainly, but exactly what is it about a body of work of consistent excellence that deserves the cold shoulder from the reading world at large?

12 comments:

seana graham said...

You are an excellent reviewer, Declan, and I completely concur with the bafflement. But I don't think it's the reading world that's giving him the cold shoulder. I think it's something about how publishing works right now.

And yes, that's depressing.

Declan Burke said...

Hi Seana -

Or how publishing doesn't work, perhaps.

I suppose in the long run what matters is the books, and I think McKinty is maybe doomed to be one of these writers who are only fully appreciated in retrospect. I sincerely hope not.

Cheers, Dec

Unknown said...

Yup. What Seana said.

Sean Patrick Reardon said...

As Seana mentioned, a fine review. I really enjoyed FG as well.

John McFetridge said...

A small restaurant opened in my neighbourhood last year called The Burger's Priest and it makes excellent hamburgers and fresh cut french fries. I mean, really, really good hamburgers. Really good.

There's a McDonalds about two blocks further down the street that sells about a thousand times as many burgers every day.

It is depressing.

At least with books, when McKinty catches on (as he will) his backlist will still be fresh.

Declan Burke said...

John -

I like this 'small restaurant' idea you keep bringing up, like good books are an acquired taste for refined palates.

Except we live in the real world of fast food, takeaways and frozen pizza.

Cheers, Dec

John McFetridge said...

Damn that real world.

Still, I'm going to try and remain positive that books at least have a chance to stay in the game for the long term. As a drug dealer told me recently, it's marathon, not sprint...

seana graham said...

In my town there are of course plenty of fast food places, but the local favorite is a little burger hut called Jack's which has probably been around for 30 or forty years. I'm sure McDonald's outsells them, but only Jack's gets the love.

Glenna said...

Very well put Declan. It is very disconcerting.

kathy d. said...

It's the publishing world and the nonpromotion of books. Many writers complain about that.

It's as if writers have to do their own promotion to get their books sold.

Case in point: I went into an independent bookstore in my city to ask if they carried books by a fairly new, but good author, whose recent book had been nominated for several mystery awards. They did.

I walked two blocks away to another independent bookstore, and asked if they carried books by that author. The owners had never heard of the writer.

Conclusion: The publisher had not advertised or otherwise promoted their own book/author.

And many authors complain of this problem.

It's awful. The bestselling books and authors are promoted, and that's it.

Peter Rozovsky said...

If McKinty had only had the brains to be Swedish, he'd have it made in the shade.

I want to visit the Burger's Priest!
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

bookwitch said...

I'd be happy to adopt Adrian.

I find it's only the really big names that get a lot of publisher PR aimed in all directions. For most others it's now the case that they need to hire their own PR to get a mention. Unless you have a vampire in your book.

The latest in children's books is the blog tour. It absolves publishers from the work, and as far as I can see brings very little extra attention to either book, author or blogger.