“THE BIG O is a very entertaining crime novel. It’s fast-moving, it has snappy dialogue, and it’s wickedly funny. It’s told in short chapters that concentrate on the individual characters and their situations. The plot builds and builds, and the climactic scenes really pay off … The book’s not yet available in the U. S., more’s the pity, but I was lucky enough to snag a review copy. Check it out if you get the chance.” – Edgar-nominated author Bill CriderBill? Our first-born is yours for the asking …
“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
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Embiggened O # 2,019: Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Good Karma?
All The World’s A Stage, And Each Must Write Her Part
Q: In addition to becoming an author, you have acquired a strong reputation as an actor. Why do you think IN THE WOODS came out of you in the shape of a novel, instead of a script or a screenplay?Method in her madness, eh? Stanislavski would surely have been proud …
TF: “This may sound strange, but writing IN THE WOODS as a novel was actually a lot closer to acting than writing a script or a screenplay would have been. The book is first person — everything is seen through Rob Ryan’s eyes, filtered through his perceptions and described in his voice. That was my job as an actor for years: to create a character and spend hours a day operating completely from her perspective. Writing IN THE WOODS was just an extension of that process. I played Rob Ryan for almost two years — on paper, rather than on stage, but the mental process was the same. To write the story as a script or a screenplay, I would have needed to work from a much more detached point of view, coming at it as an all-seeing outsider rather than as a character experiencing the story from inside, and I don’t have a clue how to do that. Working from inside is all I know.”
Thursday, October 4, 2007
“Crucifixion? Second On The Left, One Cross Each.”
“I introduced Inspector Starrett when Christy Kennedy was solving a crime and returned to his native Portrush. I like to keep things factually accurate. I’d wouldn’t like my readers to be scoffing at something in the plot saying “Ah come on, that could never have happened,” so when it went cross-border he had to work in conjunction with Inspector Starrett. It made it much easier to write this first Donegal detective novel because he came to me already fully formed.”Lovely stuff. Mind you, given that the novel opens with a crucifixion in the sleepy village of Ramelton, maybe we’d best lay off the ‘prophet recognised in his own country’ lines for now, eh?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Thrills, Tills And Bellyaches
Declan Meade: There’s an element of the thriller in both of the books, in how the story is told.Hurrah! Stupid thriller lovers send the tills ker-ching buying literary fiction by accident, and everyone’s a winner, especially the delectable Ms Kilroy! Glad that’s settled. Oops, no it’s not …
Claire Kilroy: “Certainly when all the reviews came out for TENDERWIRE, they were all saying it was a literary thriller, which I’m not sure about. You’re always a bit cautious to end up in a genre, and I’m not sure exactly what that genre is. The last review I got was in the TLS, and it said the publishers are pushing this as a whodunnit and it’s not. It’s one of those things: you want people to read your book, so if the publishers say calling it a whodunnit means that more people might buy it, even by accident, that’s fine – it’s better than people not buying it at all.”
DM: We’ve spoken about plot and pace but your novels also have some beautiful descriptions and phrases that arrest the reader’s attention. How important is that aspect of the writing to you?Erm, yes, possibly - if you’re a poet. The delectable Ms Kilroy appears to have forgotten that language is not in fact ‘all’, but is simply one of the tools available to a novelist telling a story. But lo! The delectable Ms Kilroy hasn’t forgotten that, because her novels are constructed in – shock! – linear narratives in which characters engage in – quelle horror! – criminal acts in order to further the – ooh, the humanity! – story! So is the delectable Ms Kilroy really the self-consciously literary snob she professes herself to be? Or doth the lady protest too much in order to perpetrate a hilarious post-modern double-bluff? YOU decide!
CK: “It means far more than pace. See, to me, the thriller is an inferior form. I’ve never read a thriller – so I shouldn’t say it’s an inferior form (laughs) – but I’m not interested. The one quasi-thriller I did read was MISS SMILLA’S FEELING FOR SNOW, and it started off great, but then it became just a thriller, so what’s the point? Language is the all, and trying to express specific experiences, emotional experiences, through imagery and metaphor, that is what it’s about.”
Actually, This Cromwell We Like
Crime Spraoi
It seems we now have writers who have successfully absorbed the lessons of the past masters, and deployed them with an almost clinical skill in response to a society which is rapidly transforming. If anything, the detective novel or thriller is becoming a more accurate measure of what Irish society is now like than any other genre …Hooray! The grubbikins have landed! The piece name-checks Tana French, Declan Hughes (above right, and Shamus-winner last weekend for Best First Novel), Paul Charles, Arlene Hunt and particularly the Irish crime-writing monk, Andrew Nugent, to wit:
In his latest novel, Second Burial, Andrew Nugent investigates the murder of the owner of a Nigerian restaurant in inner city Dublin, and the effect this has on the victim’s younger brother. Yet uniquely among the current group of crime fiction writers, Nugent is not directly influenced by past masters. Like Tana French, he cites Donna Tartt’s The Secret History as a seminal text, but that’s where the similarity ends. Instead Nugent claims his work as a theologian has had greater impact. Regarding his most recent spiritual book he claims that, “It comes from the same place within myself as the murder mysteries. They’re just two sides of the same coin, being as they are about the growth and development of people.” He is representative of a refreshing distinctiveness in a group of stylistically diverse writers.Lumme! Crime writing is the new spirituality? That’s an acceptance too far, wethinks. Still, two thumbs up to the Trib for giving Irish crime writing some oxygen, albeit with two little caveats. Firstly, where the hell is Brian McGilloway? Is it ’cos he’s a Nordie? Secondly, on the very weekend the article was published, a certain Ken Bruen (left) was claiming his second Shamus, and a Barry to boot, at the Alaska Bouchercon. Did the Godfather of Modern Irish crime writing get a mention in the Trib piece? Erm, no. Seriously, there are days when we think we’ve only imagined Ken Bruen …
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: The History Of Things by Sean Moncrieff
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The Embiggened O # 9,012: Some Weeks Are Better Than Others
“It takes some big cojones for a writer to slap a title like [THE BIG O] on a piece of crime fiction. With Declan Burke, there is no lack in the cojones department. For those that have partaken in Burke’s EIGHTBALL BOOGIE, this book is utterly different. Burke has grown as a writer and THE BIG O is everything fans of dark, fast, tightly woven crime fiction could want … What could be an overly complicated and confusing book is well structured and well paced. By using clearly marked narrative separation, Burke skilfully lets the reader know what is going on with the entire cast, event by event. He does this seamlessly and with mordant humour. As each scene unfolds, tension mounts and hilarity ensues. And guess as the reader might, there is no way to predict how the finale will unfold.”Jen? If we weren’t already married, you’d be applying for a restraining order right about now. Meanwhile, two of the generous souls over at Shots Mag – aka Ali Karim and Tony Black – have seen fit to post up a feature about our humble offering over at their interweb page thingagummy, lobbing us into the middle of some distinctly dubious-looking company that includes Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Cathi Unsworth and Robert Ferrigno. Consider our gob well and truly smacked. As for our gast, well, it’s never had a flabbering quite like it …
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 549: Seth Harwood
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
The answer’s got to be THE LONG GOODBYE. Other top choices would be THE GRIFTERS or MONA, aka GRIFTER’S GAME, by Lawrence Block.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I read a lot of non-fiction for the classes I teach, so sometimes it feels like the crime I read is my guilty pleasure. But lately I’m reading Denis Johnson when I feel like I’m supposed to be reading more crime novels. So Denis Johnson, I guess. He, Junot Diaz, and Ray Carver are still my favourite writers.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Without a doubt, my most satisfying writing moments have come on the days when I’ve finished the first draft of a novel. Those are the only days where I feel like, Damn, I need to go out and celebrate. Usually I take myself out to lunch. Once revision starts, nothing ever feels finished. Also, the day Jeremy Robinson agreed to publish JACK WAKES UP on his Breakneck Books label. I’m already getting excited about this coming Palm(s) Sunday, March 16th, the day it comes out. That’ll be pretty satisfying.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Ummm ... this is where I confess as to how woefully unread I am on Irish crime writers. Ken Bruen’s on the shelf close to my bed, and Al Guthrie tells me great things about THE BIG O. Seriously. But my favourite Irish writer has got to be Frank O’Connor. His THE LONELY VOICE is the best book about writing I’ve read. Period.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst? Sometimes just having to stick to your guns, wait out the world, and hope that everything will work out. Sometimes the hope is all there is. Best? The days I finish writing and don’t feel like there’s more to do, the days I actually feel good enough about how everything’s going that I get out and take the dog for a good walk in the sun. Those times, those are the gold. But I guess that’s more about the “having written” than about the writing. Best thing about the writing? Getting lost in it and totally pulled into the story I’m creating. This, when this happens and the story actually comes along and surprises me ... those moments are awesome!
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Jack Palms is back in San Francisco and an SF cop just got killed. When a few young Russian sex slaves start turning up dead, Jack has to find the connection and stop who’s responsible before any more girls--or cops!--get bumped off.
Who are you reading right now?
Denis Johnson’s TREE OF SMOKE, Cornell Woolrich, and whatever I get in the mail from Hard Case Crime.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Talk, act, shoot.
Seth Harwood’s JACK WAKES UP will be published in March 2008.
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Embiggened O # 491: Holy Moly, It’s Reed Farrel Coleman!
“No such thing as coincidence? Don’t tell that to the glorious band of cast-offs and misfits that populate the pages of Declan Burke’s uncanny THE BIG O. With a deft touch, Burke pulls together a cross-genre plot that’s part hard-boiled caper, part thriller, part classic noir, and flat out fun. From first page to last, THE BIG O grabs hold and won’t let go.” – Reed Farrel Coleman: Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Award-winning Author of THE JAMES DEANSAll of which is lovelier than Nicole Kidman guesting on trumpet break in a Forever Changes-era Love cover band. But the best thing(s)? Reed Farrel Coleman owes us nothing, needs us for nothing, and can gain absolutely nothing by doing us a favour. Better still, THE JAMES DEANS is one hell of a read, and Moe Prager – for those in the know – is the realest of private eye deals. So are we happy? To paraphrase Leonard ‘Laughing Lenny’ Cohen, we haven’t been this happy since the end of World War II ...
The Monday Review
The Man Who Put The ‘Huge’ Into ‘Hughes’
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Bruen Up A Perfect Storm
The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books
(a) The SimilarityDrop us a mail at the address in the top right of the blog, putting ‘Tana French competition’ in the subject line. And remember, people – if you’re not in, you can’t lose …
(b) The Likeness
(c) The Virtually Indistinguishable Clone-Like Replication