“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, May 15, 2012

Far Away, As Close

Over the last few years or so we’ve been getting regular communications from New York here at CAP Towers, and specifically from one Seamus Scanlon, each new mail announcing, if a little diffidently, that said Seamus Scanlon has just won another short story competition.
  So it really shouldn’t come as any great surprise to learn that the Cairn Press will be publishing a collection of Seamus Scanlon’s short stories. To wit:
We are happy to announce the forthcoming publication of Seamus Scanlon’s remarkable short story collection, AS CLOSE AS YOU’LL EVER BE. Due for release in July, 2012, Scanlon’s collection is what can only be described as literary noir. Blood and memory fuel the elegant prosody that meanders between the spartan and the poetic, and the violence of Ireland is something that cannot be left behind.
  Intriguing, no? I met with Seamus Scanlon in September of last year, when a rabble of Irish crime writers toddled over to New York for the launch of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, and were so wonderfully received at Ireland House in NYU. At the time, if memory serves, Seamus was in something of a dilemma; keep writing the short stories he was so obviously good at, but which don’t necessarily sell very well as collections; or abandon the short stories for a novel, a form in which he wasn’t entirely confident of his ability. I’m delighted to see that Cairn Press had the foresight to follow through on Seamus’s natural ability as a short story writer, and not try to shoehorn him into something he isn’t. That said, he recently distinguished himself as a playwright too
  Anyway, an ARC of AS CLOSE AS YOU’LL EVER BE is on its way to CAP Towers as you read, and as always, I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, clickety-click here for the Kindle-friendly taster, ‘My Beautifully Brash Beastly Belfast’

No comments: