“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

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,099: R.S. Downie

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Anything by Elmore Leonard. The man is a genius.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Janet Evanovich, Marian Keyes, anonymous estate agents on ‘Rightmove’ selling seaside houses I’m never going to live in.
Most satisfying writing moment?
13 October 2005. Sitting at home contemplating the futility of life, as you do when you’ve managed to fail interviews for several jobs, including your own, and you’re going to have to stop wasting time writing and find something useful to do for the rest of your sorry existence. The agent phoned and said, ‘We think we ought to tell you what’s been going on down here ...’
The best Irish crime novel is …?
STAR OF THE SEA isn’t really a crime novel is it? Oh, sorry – it’s you who asks the questions. STAR OF THE SEA, then.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Colin – no, Bateman’s – BELFAST CONFIDENTIAL. Or anything else involving Dan Starkey that hasn’t been filmed yet.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst – when it all goes wrong you can’t blame another department. Best – you can say you’re working without getting out of bed. Plus ‘I want to buy that book’ becomes ‘I really need to ...’
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Exasperated Legionary medic goes home to Gaul to sort out his family’s debt problems, and manages to make everything significantly worse.
Who are you reading right now?
Sarah Bower, Roland Vernon, White and Folkens’ THE HUMAN BONE MANUAL, and the Book of Amos.
God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. There’s more CJ Sansom and Simon Scarrow waiting out there, and I’m tired of being the social outcast who hasn’t read LABYRINTH or Lemony Snicket.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Right now, halfway thro’ a novel and realising the great ideas in my head don’t look so great on paper ... the words are ... not very nice. No, those aren’t the words themselves, I mean ... oh, never mind. How can I write a novel when I can’t answer a simple question fluently? Oh. Yes. I remember now, officer. You ask the questions.

R.S. Downie’s RUSO AND THE DEMENTED DOCTOR hits the shelves on March 6.
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