
One man who did get his grubby mitts on a copy is Tony Black, he of PAYING FOR IT fame. He has a review of SANCTUARY up at the inimitable Sons of Spade, with the gist running thusly:
“The beauty of the prose can only be described as that of a genius. Bruen applies a finesse to his slickly-crafted sentences that’s unmatched. It’s a Salinger-esque trip told with the kind of insight you’d expect from an author with his own unique, cultural X-ray vision. And, in SANCTUARY, the new Ireland, in all its complexities, is never far from his field of view.”Nice. Meanwhile, one book that is definitely published in the US this week is Brian McGilloway’s BORDERLANDS, and we know this because his fellow scribe David Isaak has the pics to prove it over at the Macmillan New Writers blog. Quoth David:
“This is more than a selfless interest in seeing Brian’s book reach a wider audience; this is also an historic, but little-noted occasion. This is the first time a Macmillan New Writing book has jumped the Atlantic and been printed in an American edition …Erm, David? What the blummin’ hell is Elphaba when it’s at home?
“McGilloway’s prose is flawless, his characters pop off the page, the plot is engrossing, and the setting unique. The book received deservedly great reviews in Ireland and the UK, and sold enough copies to turn most writers Elphaba-coloured with envy.”