“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, December 11, 2013

Is It Safe?

I mentioned earlier in the week that I’ve been struggling for the last while with a new book, so God only knows what possessed me to read William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN again. I’ve loved that book for about 30 years now, give or take, and to read it now suggests that I harbour a self-destructive (and possibly masochistic) streak a mile wide. If you’re ever seriously doubting your ability to write a good thriller, and need that one last nudge that will tip you over the edge and take your typewriter / laptop with you into the abyss, just read MARATHON MAN and go gently into that good night, amen, etc.
  (Writing Tip to Self: try having interesting things happen to interesting people in a blackly humorous way on nearly every page. It’s worth a shot, at least, surely?)
  Anyway, given that we all know that the whole point of the crime / mystery novel is the righting of wrongs and the pursuit of justice, the following passages leapt out at me:
‘Police?’ Babe blinked. ‘Police? Why should I call them, what good would that do?’ He buttoned the raincoat. ‘I don’t want justice, are you kidding, screw justice, we’re way past justice, it’s blood now …’ (pg 227)
  And again:
‘Well, we’ve been making a mistake with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners – all this time we should have been giving back pain. That’s the real lesson. That’s the loser’s share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we’d have a nice peaceful place here if all you war-makers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend.’ (pg 273)
  So – what exactly is it crave from our deliciously escapist crime / thriller fiction? Justice? Or blood and agony?

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