“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

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

“A Broken Mind Is A Very Attractive Thing To A Woman.”

I had a piece published in the Irish Examiner the weekend before last, which centred on Irish women crime writers, and exploring the reasons why crime fiction written by women comes at the crime narrative in a way that’s distinct from the male take on the genre. It featured a rather fabulous photo-shoot styled by Annmarie O’Connor (right), which starred Arlene Hunt, Ava McCarthy, Niamh O’Connor and Alex Barclay as latter-day femmes fatales, and opened up a lot like this …
A WOMAN’S work is never done, especially when that work involves excavating the fears, hopes and traumas that lie at the heart of crime fiction.
  Alex Barclay, Arlene Hunt, Niamh O’Connor and Ava McCarthy are four of the leading lights of the current wave of Irish crime writing — women who prove that the female author is very often deadlier than the male.
  “Crime novels are about life, death, love, loss and broken minds,” says Alex Barclay. “A broken mind is a very attractive thing to a woman, because there is a compulsion to understand it. I’m not saying that no man is wired that way, just that more women are.”
For the rest, clickety-click here

1 comment:

@Ruby_Barnes said...

Women are attracted to the damaged male mind, no doubt about that.

Fantastic photo and a very interesting piece. You get around, Dec.

Cheers
Ruby