“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

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Genre and Literary Fiction: Whither le Carré?

Adam Sisman’s JOHN LE CARRÉ: THE BIOGRAPHY gets off to a good start – in my book – with Sisman’s Introduction, when he says that the ‘condescending attitude taken by some towards le Carré is explained in part by the idea that ‘genre’ novels are innately inferior’:
“To me, the argument about whether a genre novelist can ever be ‘literary’ is a circular one. The very distinction is meaningless. Is Jane Austen a genre novelist? Is Nineteen Eighty-Four a genre novel? or A Tale of Two Cities? or Wolf Hall? or The Quiet American? All that one can usefully say is that there are good novelists and bad novelists. […]
“I suspect that his enormous success has prejudiced some critics against le Carré. If a writer is so popular, he must have lowered himself to the level of the masses. Quite apart from being manifestly untrue, this is no more than snobbery. We should delight in the fact that such a sophisticated and subtle writer has so many readers. A further problem for le Carré is that his books are often tense, exciting and even thrilling – qualities not often present in literary fiction, and ones that perhaps disqualify him from entertaining the pantheon.
“I see an analogy with Alfred Hitchcock, a filmmaker whose artistry was often overlooked in his lifetime because he made the mistake of being popular. The novels of le Carré blend art and entertainment, a mix to be relished by those who have the taste to enjoy it.” ~ Adam Sisman

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Launch: SOUR by Alan Walsh

SOUR is the debut novel from Alan Walsh, a modern retelling of the myth of ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows’ – sounds like a cracking idea. The launch details are as follows: