“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, May 27, 2015

Interview: SJ Watson, author of SECOND LIFE

SJ Watson’s (right) debut novel BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP is one of the finest examples of ‘domestic noir’ to date. Last week I interviewed SJ Watson for the Irish Examiner to mark the publication of his second novel, SECOND LIFE (Doubleday). Sample quote:
“As I was writing Second Life, I realised that I was writing about identity again, and this idea of ‘who are we, really? What is it that makes us what we are? How easily can we manipulate that’? With Second Life, it’s done in a much more knowing way, because, in some ways, Julia is manipulating her own identity, whereas, in Before I Go To Sleep, it’s Christine who is being manipulated by somebody else without her knowledge. It intrigues me, that I’m sitting here talking to you, but I’m a different person to who I am if I’m sitting at home with my partner, and I’m a different person again if I’m with my family. And all of those are different people to who I was when I worked in the health service. We all kind of carry this multiplicity of self within us.”
  For the rest of the interview, clickety-click here …
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