“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

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Captain Kirkus Boldly Goes

By way of Maxine Clarke's very funky Petrona blog comes news of the influential Kirkus Reviews ’07 First Fiction Spotlight, aka ‘Promising Debuts From Important New Voices’. Gene Kerrigan gets the hup-ya for The Midnight Choir, the follow-up to Little Criminals being his debut in the States: “Kerrigan has crafted an incisive portrait of contemporary Ireland through the matter-of-fact perspectives of officers on its legendary police force, the Gardai.” Which is nicer than nice … Meanwhile, two children’s authors get the big bump from Captain Kirkus. Eoin McNamee’s The Navigator is described as “… a crafty first piece of young-adult fiction …” while Derek Landy (see more down below somewhere) is the rave du jour: “Skulduggery Pleasant, his smart, stylish young-adult debut novel, has both substance and velocity, giving the story – a modern-day tale of sorcery, murder and menace, with a couple of sharp-tongued leading characters – a frightful excitement.” Okay – but yon Landy still isn’t dating Nicole Kidman, right?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the funky, but in actual fact I am geriatric. Can I be both at the same time?

Declan Burke said...

Funky is as funky does, Maxine - or wants to do, for that matter ...

Anonymous said...

Like your headline too -- you managed to avoid a Kirkian split infinitive, I see.