“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, February 8, 2008

Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

It’s Friday, it’s funky, to wit: Publishers Weekly announces that Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR is slated to appear as a Spring 2007 Audio, despite the fact that it’s currently being serialised in the New York Times and it won’t be published as an actual, y’know, novel until June … Harrumph, etc. Staying with the pseudonymous Black family: the first sighting of the upcoming Ingrid Black novel, THE NIGHT SHIFT, hoves into view over an October-shaped horizon, with the blurb elves at Michael Joseph / Penguin declaiming thusly: “It takes a lot to spook ex-FBI agent Saxon, but with a serial killer on the loose in Dublin, this is going to be a Halloween night to remember. Ingrid Black’s novel is a dark and inventive real-time thriller …” Hurrah! Two fascinating pieces for anyone still flogging the horse called ‘crime fiction is as good as that literary rubbish any day’: Charles McGrath had an excellent piece entitled ‘Great Literature? Depends Whodunit’ in the New York Times, while Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George compile The Literary Police Blotter at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Camus, Shakespeare, Kafka, Homer, Nabokov, Fitzgerald, Dostoevsky and Cervantes are among the usual suspects being interrogated for writing ‘classic’ crime narratives … Staying with classic crime narratives: Twenty Major’s genre-busting opus THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX PARK goes on the shelves next month – catch up here with Twenty’s drinking buddy Lucky Luciano, the ‘compassionate assassin’ … Finally, and by popular demand, it’s another Jim Steinman classic for the Funky Friday vid: yep, it’s Bonnie Tyler lacerating her vocal cords on Holding Out for a Hero from the soundtrack of FOOTLOOSE, complete with Kevin Bacon, subtitles and a pretty blatant nod (even leaving aside the chicky-run tractors) to REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (jump here for Marlon Brando’s screen-test as Jim Stark). Roll it there, Collette …

1 comment:

Twenty Major said...

Slight correction - it's out this month.

Next week, actually. Well, probably early the week after but definitely this month.