“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

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Burke And McFetridge, Going Dutch

In case you missed the linky-poo on Monday, John McFetridge (right) is writing a meta-fiction-y short story in which he and I go on a crime spree during our pre-Bouchercon road-trip. To wit:
When I wrote my novel, EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE, I used Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, and I’m pretty sure that Declan Burke used them when he wrote his novel, THE BIG O, so it was natural when we teamed up to pull armed robberies on our way to Bouchercon in Baltimore, we’d use Elmore’s Ten Rules for Success and Happiness from his novel SWAG.
  In both cases we had to make minor changes to the rules. For one thing, grocery stores and bars never have much cash on hand anymore and one exclamation point for every hundred thousand words? Come on, these are crime novels, people getting robbed and beaten up yell ...
  It’s all true, by the way. Except for the bit where I call Elmore Leonard ‘Dutch’. For the rest, clickety-click here

UPDATE:
Now this is what I call the Big Time

6 comments:

Gerard Brennan said...

Great fun. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

gb

adrian mckinty said...

Sounds like a larf

Peter Rozovsky said...

Golly, does Elmore Leonard saunter over to you and say, "Hey, Irish!"?

V-word: blend.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Declan Burke said...

I believe it's actually one of Elmore Leonard's legal representatives, Peter, and he says, "Hey, Irish, you're served for third-rate plagarism." Still, it can't be Mills & Boon every day, right?

Cheers, Dec

Logan Lamech said...

So will this be a story actually for sale or is it just between friends for fun, because now I'm interested.

Logan Lamech
www.eloquentbooks.com/LingeringPoets.html

Gerard Brennan said...

I just spotted the update about the Elmore Leonard website. Frickin' class!

I think you should make a bigger deal about it.

gb