“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

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Painting A Very Different Canvas

I know very little about the world of professional wrestling other than it is as fake as it is slick, a fictional world in which one of the greatest gifts is the ability, metaphorically speaking, to convincingly pull a punch as you plant your opponent on the canvas.
  Paul O’Brien’s debut novel BLOOD RED TURNS DOLLAR GREEN is set in a very different wrestling world, albeit one that is no less contrived, and from the blurb it sounds as if very few punches are being pulled. To wit:
1972, New York City, and a dazed Lenny Long walks away from a crash carrying someone’s foot in his hand. He is also searching for the VIP passenger who has somehow disappeared from the back of his overturned van. It’s the first day of his new promotion and Lenny has less than twenty minutes to deliver the missing person or a lot of people are going to get badly hurt. Danno Garland is in Shea Stadium trying to avoid a riot. He’s coming to the end of the most successful wrestling card of all time but he’s also coming to the realisation that he might not be able to deliver his widely hyped main event. He knows there’s more than just the eyes of the stadium looking at him and if Lenny doesn’t arrive soon, blood is going to be sought. probably his. Proctor King nervously watches the show on TV, wondering why his fuck-up of a son doesn’t already have the Heavyweight Championship in his hands. Arranging this match has taken Proctor four years of pay-offs, double dealing and bone breaking to arrange. If all that effort has been wasted then he might just have to take him a business trip to New York. Lenny, Danno and Proctor. Three men with pieces of the puzzle but none with the full picture. When they do piece it all together, the ‘fake’ world of professional wrestling is going to get very real.
  Sounds good, right? Well, don’t take the blurb elves’ word for it. Here’s the inimitable Eoin Colfer with his big-up of BLOOD RED TURNS DOLLAR GREEN. Roll it there, Collette …

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