“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, October 12, 2007

Symptoms Of A General Malaise

Published by New Island, Frances Cahill’s biography of her late father, MARTIN CAHILL, MY FATHER, aka Ireland’s most famous gangster, The General, has been getting some serious oxygen by Irish true crime standards, most recently in the Daily Mirror. Quoth Stephen Maguire:
“Frances Cahill’s book about her crime-lord dad The General has sparked a feud - because she broke an unwritten family code of silence about the gangster, it was claimed yesterday. Law student Frances, who lives with her family in Wicklow, received a EUR20,000 advance for her controversial book MARTIN CAHILL, MY FATHER. The sensational biography claims the Dublin gangster thwarted a plot to kidnap Bono’s daughter and also reveals how he once carried out 100 burglaries in one night. But the book has now back-fired in Frances’ face with many of her extended family furious she has broken their unwritten rule to never speak publicly about the slain gangland boss …”
Meanwhile, John Burke, public affairs correspondent with the Sunday Business Post and a former crime reporter, is less than favourable in his review, which concludes thusly:
“The author accords comparatively little of the critical tone she reserves for the gardaĆ­ to these acts of criminality. Most of Cahill’s criminal career - the Beit robberies, his run-ins with the Provisional IRA, the robberies, the bomb attack that maimed forensic scientist Jim Donovan - has been documented before in great detail in both print and on film, yet never before has his life been portrayed in such sympathetic terms. It is likely this book will sell well, but many will find it difficult to accommodate the comparable lack of balance by the author in her depiction of her father, a career criminal, and the gardaĆ­ and justice system that justifiably sought to end his reign of violent crime.”
Still, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? And with Ireland’s appetite for true crime stories showing no discernible signs of diminishing, this one should have more legs than the Spider Olympics.

No comments: