“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

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Hmmmm ... The Mysterious Affair Of The Turned-Down Turndown, You Say?

We're blaming John 'Sweary Mary' Connolly (right) - according to Books Reading Ideas, the Ritz Carlton chain had the bright idea of offering a paperback of short stories, Turndown Tales, as part of its 'turndown' service, with Connolly, Jodie Picoult and Susan Isaacs among the contributors.
"Then came the problem," says the New York Times: "the book’s contents turned out to be a tad rougher than, say, the Gideon Bible, and at the last minute, the Ritz started getting cold feet. 'They submitted the manuscript and we rejected it,' said Julia Gajcak, vice president for marketing and communications of Ritz-Carlton. 'There were some language issues, and there was some racy content.' By racy content they meant bad parenting, deaths of family members and swearing, which were a bit too abundant for the hotel's taste."
The collection, suitably purged of 'racy' material, will be available in Ritz Carlton rooms this summer. We'd love to include John Connolly's f#%king racy response to the censorship, but unfortunately this is a family blog ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Makes you wonder if they read as much as a couple of pages of Connolly's books before inviting him to contribute.