“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, January 3, 2008

Irish Crime Fiction, Eh? Now That Is A Novel Idea …

John Spain, literary editor at the Irish Independent, lamented the State of the Irish Novel back at the end of December, the gist of his piece running thusly:
“In that sense 2007 was another year in Irish fiction when not much emerged that was new or engaged with Celtic Tiger Ireland … It was more of the same misery, sexual unhappiness and navel-gazing. Isn’t it time our best writers got over themselves and started to tackle the Ireland of today? […] Non-fiction writers like historian Roy Foster and economist David McWilliams have been trying to capture the changes of the last 20 or 30 years in their most recent books. But so far our fiction writers – even the gifted [Anne] Enright – have dodged the challenge. It’s time to move on, guys.”
Erm, John? You might want to try, in no particular order, Gene Kerrigan, Ken Bruen, Tana French, Declan Hughes, Brian McGilloway, Andrew Nugent, Ingrid Black, Sean Moncrieff, Mia Gallagher … Actually, it’s a pretty long list of diverse stories and storytellers, with a common theme being that they’re all investigating what makes the Ireland of today tick. Just thought we’d mention it …
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