“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, May 30, 2008
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: CHASIN’ THE WIND by Michael Haskins
Michael Haskins gives us a glimpse of ‘island time’ and island life in his debut novel, CHASIN’ THE WIND, which is set in and around Key West’s ‘Old Town’. With ‘Mad Mick’ Murphy, a freelance journalist, as our tour guide, we are exposed to the sultry lazy days and the laid-back bar hopping island nights that most of us secretly envy. One would almost expect Hemingway to walk through the door and start an argument at the bar.
Mick, who has a supposedly violent past, has spent most of his career writing about Central and South American foreign affairs. He has made Key West his hermitage from the ghosts of his former life in California when he is suddenly confronted with violence and the need for revenge upon discovering the murder of one of his sailing buddies. Haskins takes us on a wild-wind journey of inept local police, mysterious agents from competing ‘agencies’, Cuban espionage and soulless murderers. The story rushes you along the surface so fast you think you are sailing on the Gulf Stream.
The downside to this is that, because CHASIN’ THE WIND is a thriller, Haskins gives the novel the feeling of a New York minute. Mick Murphy is someone you want to get to know, someone you want to relate with; however, we are never really given the chance.
The end of CHASIN’ THE WIND has sequel stamped all over it, and I really hope that that is true. Michael Haskins has the wonderful ability to evoke the sights and smells of the island out of thin air, and it doesn’t hurt that he has Mick drinking Jamesons like most of us drink water. Haskins just needs to give us the same feeling for his characters, and to let the ‘Mad Mick’ Murphy series find some island time, so we can get to know the characters, their interconnections, and the plots better. – Josh Schrank
Thursday, May 29, 2008
And Now A Word From Our Sponsors
Because of that I made sure I finished the sequel to THE BIG O, which isn’t due until October, by mid-February. Once that was done I swore that I wouldn’t write again for six months after the baby was born. I lasted almost three weeks after Lily was born.
I persuaded myself that redrafting doesn’t constitute real writing, even though it’s the part I enjoy the most, so I got out a story I wrote about five years ago and started messing around with it. The first section comes below.
Why am I posting it on a blog? Well, because I can. And because I’m interested to see what kind of reaction this kind of post might generate, as well as the more specific kind of feedback that may or may not come via the comment box or email. Any and all bouquets, brickbats, thoughts and impressions welcome.
The plan is to post a new section once a week. With a fair wind and enough interest, I should have the entire novel posted up on the blog within three months.
Sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin …
A GONZO NOIR / Declan Burke
I: Winter
‘You don’t remember me,’ he says.
I allow that I don’t. But then I haven’t had my coffee yet, or even a smoke.
This is in the back garden early on a Tuesday morning in late spring out on the decking overlooking the pond. The sun coming up, the day already warm.
‘It’s probably the eye-patch,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t blond then, either.’ He has a platinum blond crew-cut, Newman-blue eyes and a square jaw. I guess him to be mid-thirties. ‘And I was about three inches shorter.
‘A man needs some stature,’ he says.
I go inside and draw him a cup of coffee wondering what he’s doing in my back garden before I’ve even had my first cigarette. Back out on the decking I say, ‘I give up. Who are you?’
‘Karlsson,’ he says.
‘Should I know you?’ I say, blowing on my coffee. ‘Have we met?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You remember Karlsson, right? The porter.’
‘The hospital porter?’
‘Him, yeah.’
I reach for the smokes and get one lit. Sip some coffee and wait for a tic or flinch to give him away. He only stares.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I’ll play along. You’re Karlsson. So what can I do for you?’
‘You can start by telling me what happened.’
‘With you? Nothing.’ I explain that first drafts get written and printed out and then they go on the shelf for at least six months. No exceptions.
‘Fair go,’ he says. ‘But it’s been nearly five years now. I mean, I was 28 when you wrote that draft. And I know you didn’t stop writing. I saw that new one, The Big O, it arrived on the shelf about two years ago.’
‘Things just went in a different direction, man. No offence.’
‘I never thought you did it deliberately,’ he says. ‘But you should know, I’m stuck in limbo here.
‘Publish or be damned,’ he says.
Karlsson was a hospital porter who assisted old people who wanted to die. His girlfriend found out. Then the cops got involved because the girlfriend contacted them anonymously before confronting Karlsson, only the cops wound up more concerned about where the girlfriend, Cassie, had gone.
‘If you want the truth of it,’ I say, ‘I’m not really sure I ever intended that one to see the light of day. It was just a bunch of stuff I needed to write at the time, get out onto the page. These days I write comedy. It’s easier, for one. And more fun. Life is shitty enough for people without them spending their precious reading time on morbid stuff.’
‘Woah,’ he says. ‘Are you telling me you never even sent it away?’
‘I didn’t just bury it.’ I’m feeling faintly, ridiculously, defensive. ‘I gave it to my agent.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said he’d never read anything like it before. He reckoned he had to stop taking notes about halfway in and just read it through. I think the pervy stuff had him a bit freaked.’
‘That’s good, right?’
‘Not in today’s market. Freaking your agent isn’t cool anymore.’
‘And he never read it again?’
‘He was about to but I stopped him. I was showing him The Big O that day.’
‘And he liked that better.’
‘I think he’d have liked the Taiwan phonebook better.’
We sit in silence while he digests that. The sun clears the Wicklow Hills to the south and the garden brightens up. Clematis buds starting to show, some pink apple blossom, snowdrops and daffodils nodding on the faint breeze. Now and again a quick flash of orange in the pond, the pair of golden carp, Jaws and Moby Dick. The little fountain pootling away to itself like a happy baby.
The heartburn is bad this morning, a Jameson hangover heartburn. I go inside and take a slug of Gaviscon, get the fish food. ‘Listen,’ I say while I feed the carp, ‘that’s tough about the whole limbo thing. But right now I’m working on something else and I’m already half-an-hour into my writing time, so ––’
‘What happens me?’ he says. The cigarette he filched burns down between his fingers.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You can’t leave me stuck here.’
‘I hear you. But my problem is that these days I only get so much time to write. I’m married now, and we have a little baby. She’s called Lily.’
He congratulates me, grudging it.
‘The point I’m making is, I can’t afford to spend any time on anything that isn’t at least potentially commercial. Or, to be perfectly frank, anything I don’t enjoy doing. That dark shit’s hard work. And if I don’t like reading back ––’
‘If it’s dark,’ he says, ‘whose fault is that?’
‘Mine, sure. But ––’
‘But schmut. If you made it dark you can make it funny. Just go back over it.’
‘Make euthanasia funny?’
‘Just listen to me a minute,’ he says. ‘Can you sit down and just listen? You owe me that much, at least.’
He’s right. I put the tin of fish-food on the table and sit down, spark another smoke.
‘See,’ he says after a moment or two, ‘I’m just not that kind of guy. The Karlsson guy, I mean. I even changed my name when I dyed my hair. I’m called Billy now.’
‘Billy.’
‘I’m aiming to normalise things all round.’
‘Then the eye-patch is probably too much.’
‘That was just to get your attention.’ He peels off the patch. There’s an empty socket underneath. He pats the pockets of his zip-up sweater and comes up with a pair of tinted shades, slips them on.
‘What happened your eye?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Anyway, this Karlsson guy – I’m not him. Not anymore. And I don’t think I ever was. I mean, I liked Cassie. Liked her a lot. And even if I didn’t I wouldn’t just kill her to get off a euthanasia rap. I’d have done a flit. The old folks, they were one thing, they wanted to die and I was helping them out. But Cassie, no way.’
‘I never actually said you killed her.’
‘No, but you left it hanging.’
‘As far as I can remember,’ I say, ‘I gave you a happy ending. You got away with it, right? The cop investigating, he turned out insane, had all these theories about population control. A big fan of the Chinese, if memory serves.’
‘Even I didn’t believe that,’ he says. ‘That ending was a mess.’
I allow that it was.
‘You can do better than that,’ he says.
‘Not with you I can’t.’
‘I’m not the problem, man. The story’s the problem.’
‘The story’s what it is,’ I say. ‘And it’s told now.’
‘I didn’t hear any fat ladies singing,’ he says.
I stub out the cigarette. ‘Listen, Karlsson, I have to ––’
‘Billy.’
‘Billy, yeah. Listen, Billy, I have to go. I need to be at work at ten-thirty and I only get two hours a day to write. So …’
‘The story was too freaky,’ he says. He’s holding up a hand to delay me. ‘Too out there but not big enough. Plus you had me down as a total dingbat. And these are things that can be changed.’
‘I really don’t know if they can.’
‘Tell me this,’ he says. ‘How long have you spent thinking about me in the last five years?’
‘I’ve thought about you, sure. And I wish ––’
‘I think I’ve got a way to make it bigger. Although you’d have to be more honest about me,’ he says. ‘If it was to work, I’d have to be more real. More me, y’know?’
‘Right now you’re sitting on the deck in my backyard smoking my cigarettes. I don’t know if I could handle you getting any more real.’
‘That’s because I’m Billy now. Karlsson never showed up here, did he?’
‘Funnily enough, he never did.’
‘Just as well,’ he says. ‘He’d probably have kidnapped little Lily and tortured her until you’d rewritten the story the way he wanted it.’
‘Y’know, I think Karlsson liked who he was. I don’t think he’d have had any issues with what happened to Cassie.’
‘Like that Ripley guy, right? A sociopath.’ He shrugs. ‘Who wants to live like that?’ He pierces me with the Newman-blue eyes. ‘You think I wouldn’t like a little Lily to play with?’
‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not feeling it, if that’s what you’re asking. But they say men don’t become fathers until their baby is born.’
‘That was true for me, yeah.’
He nods. ‘Look, all I’m asking for is one more go, see if I can’t make it out this time.’
‘Out of this limbo.’
‘Sure. Maybe if I was to get some kind of written permission from the old folks, so I’d have something to show Cassie when she found out about the euthanasia. That could help.’
‘It’d help you and Cassie, maybe. But it wouldn’t do much for the conflict in the story.’
‘That’s the other thing,’ he says. ‘I think you need a different kind of conflict. I mean, a hospital porter bumping off old people? You can get that stuff in the newspapers. Why would anyone want to read it in a book?’
‘I guess it’d depend on how interesting the killer is.’
‘Between you and me, you’re no Patricia Highsmith.’
I allow that I’m not.
‘If you want my opinion,’ he says, ‘the conflicts that work best are between the reader and a character they like who’s doing stuff they wouldn’t generally tolerate. Your mistake was to make Karlsson a total wack-job. No one who wasn’t a complete fruit could like him.’
‘Okay, so we make you likeable. What then?’
‘We blow up the hospital.’
© Declan Burke, 2008
Book Trailers – Yea Or Nay?
Then we stumbled across a trailer for the American edition of Tana French’s IN THE WOODS, which is ever-so-suitably spooky. Collette? In your own time, ma’am …
What we’re wondering, though, especially since we’re thinking of generating a book trailer of our own to mark the US publication of our humble offering THE BIG O, is whether book trailers are doing what it says on their celluloid tins. Yes, they’re all zeitgeisty and whatnot in terms of viral marketing, but does anyone really watch them? Has any book trailer blown YOU away? We were very taken with John McFetridge’s trailer for EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE, certainly …
… but has anyone ever rushed out to buy a book on the basis of its trailer? Are book trailers delivering where it matters? Or are they the mini-cinematic equivalent of bookmarks? Talk to us, people …
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,019: Peter Clenott
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
I don’t think anybody has been able to top Sherlock Holmes, as much as they may have tried. Holmes set the standard. He is a complex individual who has left enough of himself a mystery to allow generations after his demise to try to fill in the blanks.
What fictional character would you most like to have been?
I read mostly historical fiction so that the characters, typically, are not fictional but historical figures brought to life in works of fiction. For fictional characters, I would go with Holmes, or Jason Bourne from Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series. How about James Bond? He gets the women, wine, and all those fancy gimmicks.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
For guilty pleasures I don’t read so much as I look. Oh, wait, this is a public forum. Guilty pleasures? Eclectic stuff. Ludlum, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov. I enjoyed Colleen McCullough’s series on ancient Rome.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Of course it’s always satisfying to complete a novel that you’ve worked on for many months, researched, written, rewritten. Particularly once you have received feedback that says your work is good. Beyond that, the most satisfying moment I ever had, and this covers several decades of writing, was when the publisher from Kunati Books emailed me on Thursday morning August 8, 2007 and said he wanted to discuss a contract with me. Hard to beat that.
The best Irish crime novel is…?
Sorry, I don’t think I’ve read one.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
There are a number of Boston Irish crime novels. South Boston is a well-known Irish enclave in the city and has produced such notorious hoodlums as Whitey Bulger, who is still on the lam after being tipped off by his FBI handler. Whitey’s brother was president of the state senate. Dennis Lehane has written several Southie-based thrillers that have been turned into movies including the highly received MYSTIC RIVER.
Worst/best thing about being a writer?
I enjoy creating plot and characters, disappearing into their world much as an actor would. For me, writing goes beyond mere entertainment. I also like to provoke. My themes have dealt with faith versus reason, war, politics. It is very satisfying to get strong responses from readers, particularly those you’re trying to generate. Worst thing? Rejection.
The pitch for your next book is …
THEY WERE CALLED TO DUTY : 64,000,000 men and women served their countries in the war to end all wars, World War 1. Today only 13 survive. Capt. Carthage Mulkern, a decorated veteran of the Iraqi war, is assigned the duty of interviewing the last survivors, ancient men whose stories of war and remembrance intertwine with her own as she hunts for her lover lost in the chaos of Iraq.
Who are you reading now?
I am reading a non-fiction book called CHIEF OF CONGO STATION by Larry Devlin who was with the CIA when the Congo gained its independence from Belgium in 1960. The research is for a novel I am currently writing called ALBERTVILLE.
God appears and says you can only write OR read? Which is it to be?
Reading is sheer pleasure. With writing you can communicate with the world and make change. Since the world clearly needs change, I like the idea that my writing might be able to promote discussion and debate and, therefore, positive change in the world. Then I can always read what I wrote.
The three best words to describe your writing are…?
Provocative, absorbing, enjoyable.
Peter Clenott’s novel HUNTING THE KING is published by Kunati
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
“Another French Fancy, Vicar?”
Q: THE LIKENESS has elements of a locked room mystery, with all the characters, including the potential killer, living under the same roof. Was this a challenge?Erm, we give up. But is it possible that the danger is neither outside nor inside, but – gasp! – somewhere in between? That’s right, folks – it’s a new sub-sub-sub-genre, the Killer Door Mystery! Did we mention we’re giving these ideas away for free?
A: “Absolutely. I love the conventions of the mystery genre, the fact that you start out with such tight parameters: somebody gets killed and somebody finds out whodunit. I like twisting and breaking these parameters. One of my twists is that the main characters like being in their “locked room,” they like being in their own world. So the question becomes, is the danger from outside or from inside?”
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Gone Baby Gone
This review first appeared in TV Now! magazine
Better Red Than Dead
Haskins’ crime thriller CHASIN’ THE WIND, starring journalist Liam Michael ‘Mad Mick’ Murphy, was published in March 2008 and has earned excellent reviews. It’s a spicy conch chowder flavoured with dashes of small-town politics, Cuban intrigue, neurotic federales and island attitude.Erm, Michael? Try red lemonade (right). Quoth the Wiki elves:
“I created Mick Murphy on a jogging track to keep my mind off my sore legs and burning lungs,” said Haskins. “I gave him my final two vices – Irish whiskey and cigars –and I gave him red hair because I wanted him to be Irish, and nothing says Irish like red hair.”
“Red lemonade is one of the most popular mixers used with spirits in Ireland, particularly whiskey, including Paddy, Jameson and Southern Comfort … Popular urban myths include: Red lemonade only exists in Ireland as the chemical used to make it red is banned elsewhere in the world. The contention of the myth is that the chemical in it is carcinogenic and banned in all other EU countries.”So there you have it. Michael? Were Liam Murphy truly ‘mad’, he’d be drinking his Jameson with an allegedly carcinogenic chaser …
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Murder Of Crowleys?
BAFTA and IFTA winning Irish director John Crowley (Boy A, Intermission) is attached to direct the screen adaptation of Catherine O’Flynn’s award winning novel WHAT WAS LOST. WHAT WAS LOST is the debut novel for Catherine O’Flynn. Published in January 2007, the book was longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the prestigious First Novel prize at the Costa Book Awards in January 2008. The story centres upon the disappearance of a young girl in 1984 and the people who continue the search for her twenty years later. The Heyday Films / Film Four co-production is in the early stages of development with ‘Harry Potter’ producer David Heyman and co-producer Rosie Alison (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) behind optioning the project. A screenwriter is now being sought to adapt the story for the big screen.Insert your own religious-themed punchline here, incorporating some or all of the phrases ‘WHAT WAS LOST now is found’, ‘the LOST shall be the first’, and ‘LOST soul redeemed’ …