“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, August 26, 2007

The Curious Case Of The Existential Lizard

It being Monday, you may be more in need of a giggle or two than usual. Allow us to point you in the direction of Roger Gregg’s Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, a place where the line between genius and lunacy has never been so fine. Our favourites are the Bill Lizard stories (Tread Softly, Bill Lizard; Time Out for Bill Lizard; The Apocalypse of Bill Lizard), which come on like Sam Spade trapped in an episode of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as written by Flann O’Brien. Take The Apocalypse, for example:
Bill Lizard, the maladjusted detective in the two-tone shoes, and his partner Cyril the Pooka are hired by the Unspeakable to search the Unknowable to find the Unthinkable. Does the world end? What is after the After Life? Will we need shoes in heaven?
Cyril the Pooka, incidentally, is an invisible six-foot rabbit who aids and abets Bill in his attempts to escape a parallel universe in which you can count on at least seven weird things happening before breakfast. You can download the first episode of Apocalypse here, although you may want to don the whale-bone corset now, before your sides start splitting …
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