A Fairytale of New York

I walked out of my hotel in Manhattan on Friday morning to find myself in an Alan Glynn novel. A damp, muggy morning, with the upper reaches of the Chase Manhattan building (right) around the corner swaddled in cloud, and tempting it was to believe that the building was a totem for capitalism, its vaulting ambition being claimed by spectral apparitions descending on Manhattan. The impression of being in an Alan Glynn novel was only confirmed when you strolled along the street and turned right into Wall Street, which was cordoned off and patrolled by the NYPD, this due to the ‘Take Wall Street’ protests. I ate a breakfast of champions of a short stack of pancakes and a strawberry shake and watched a flash mob of protestors chant, sing and drum their way towards the cordons, hedged about and trailed by New York’s finest, the protestors filming the cops filming them, and all as suitably claustrophobic, ironic and paranoid a fairytale about the clash between capitalism and democracy as you could wish for. Or maybe I was just hallucinating after spending a night at the bar in the company of unnamed Irish writers, during which - I can only surmise - I was strapped to said bar against my will and force-fed White Russians.
  Said writers and myself were in New York, of course, to mark the US publication of DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS, and a very fine time was had at the Mysterious Bookstore on Friday evening, where we were hosted in very hospitable fashion. An absolutely wonderful bookstore; if you find yourself in New York, make your way to Warren Street and inhale. The line-up of Irish writers was (l-r): John Connolly, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay, Colin Bateman, Professor Ian Campbell Ross and Stuart Neville.

  A fine body of men, certainly, although even a cursory glance will tell you that the actually fine bodies belonged to the ladies, who brought a badly needed soupcon of glamour to the occasion.
  We’ll draw a discreet veil over the post-Mysterious Bookstore shenanigans, and fail miserably in our duty to identify the writer who managed to get trapped in the doors of a subway train, to be rescued with no little derring-do by Captain Bateman, and move on to Saturday, when Ireland House at NYU hosted said writers in a series of panels and events dedicated to exploring the current boom in Irish crime writing. John Waters of Ireland House was in wonderful form, cheerleading GREEN STREETS in particular and the Irish crime novel in particular in charismatic fashion, ably assisted by Irish crime fiction’s leading agent provocateur, one Joe Long, a man among men, and the hidden engine behind the Ireland House symposium. It was slightly surreal for yours truly to listen to various academics not only take GREEN STREETS seriously, but to spin their own theories off its central premise, and marvellous it was too to be introduced to the semi-legendary Professor Joe Lee, and be able to make a presentation to him on behalf of Liberties Press and the assembled writers.
  All in all, a terrific day, and one in which some very interesting ideas were bandied about. I may be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of that day’s events just yet.
  As for the rest, well, what happens in Noo Yoik stays in Noo Yoik. Suffice to say that wine flowed, the veritas surfaced, and I now know - even though I don’t want to - what a ‘barse’ is. Cheers, Stuart. I may never sleep peacefully again.
  Finally, a heartfelt thanks to everyone at the Mysterious Bookstore, and at Ireland House, NYU, and especially to the inimitable Clair Lamb, who was brilliant above and beyond the call of duty.

On The Irish Crime Novel And Tat

I was supposed to take part, via Skype link-up, in the Bouchercon panel on Irish crime writing yesterday, a panel hosted by Erin Mitchell and featuring John Connolly, Stuart Neville, Eoin Colfer and Erin Hart. Sadly, the technology let us down, and I was reduced to earwigging on the event, which sounded like it was terrific fun, with much in the way of self-effacing humour and self-mockery. Erm, chaps? It behoves you to act with appropriate seriousness, and whinge a lot about how you’re a second-class literary citizen, etc. Otherwise, crime writing will never get the credit it deserves from the likes of John Boland.
  Anyhoo, I had an interview with said John Connolly published yesterday in the Irish Examiner to mark the publication of his latest Charlie Parker novel, THE BURNING SOUL, which opened up a lot like this:

“You know the Irish crime novel has arrived,” says John Connolly, “because we’ve started producing tat. In the beginning it was a blank canvas, and there wasn’t a lot of money to be made, and there was a lot of experimentation, people whizzing off in interesting directions into virgin territory. Now we have the foot-soldiers coming through, producing stuff we’ve read in other forms before. Especially with the serial killer novel, which in the wrong hands can quickly spiral out of control and become a bit nasty, bodies piling up all over the pages.”
  The Irish crime novel was still something of a novelty in 1999 when Connolly, then an Irish Times journalist, published his debut, ‘Every Dead Thing’. Set in Maine in the US, and featuring the private eye Charlie Parker, its experimental aspect was the blending of conventional crime fiction tropes with elements of the gothic novel, and particularly those of the supernatural.
  “Crime fiction is still very uncomfortable with any kind of experimentation,” he says, “anything that deviates from a functional, rationalist take on the world. But I think it’s legitimate to introduce other elements, and elements that are directly opposed to that rationalist mindset ...”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …
  Staying with said John Connolly, the Dark Lord will be leading the charge to New York next week, when he heads up a posse of Irish crime scribes being hosted by Ireland House at NYU for the purpose of celebrating the rise and rise of Irish crime fiction. Attendees will include John Connolly, Stuart Neville, Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay, Declan Hughes, Colin Bateman and Professor Ian Ross on the Irish side, and Peter Quinn and Pete Hamill holding up the Irish-American end. The event takes place from 9.30am to 7pm on Saturday, September 24th at Ireland House; if you’re in the vicinity, clickety-click here for all the details …