“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

Friday, September 21, 2007

Death, Where Is Thy Sting? Oh, There It Is

Michael Collins’s The Death of A Writer – aka The Secret Life of Robert E. Pendleton – gets a paperback reprint in the US this month, hardly surprising given the stack of big-ups it’s received to date. “Michael Collins tears into literary academe with great comic gusto,” reckoned Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times, although Publishers Weekly was a tad more circumspect, to wit: “The philosophical and literary digressions may annoy some readers, but all should appreciate the fully-realized characters, lyrical place descriptions and dark, circuitous plot.” As for Mr and Mrs Kirkus, they could hardly restrain themselves: “Mystery, tragedy and farce converge in this engaging novel of considerable psychological depth … The suspense makes this a page-turner until the climax, as Collins’s plot combines academic satire, philosophical speculation and tragedy.” Hurrah! Sorry, folks, we’re kind of busy this week, so you’ll have to insert your own ‘Death, where is thy sting? It’s in the tale’ gag here …

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