Monday, April 22, 2013

Red Sky In Early Evening

If you’re going to be around Dublin city centre next Thursday, April 25th, you could do a lot worse than get along to Dubray Books on Grafton Street at 6.30pm, where Paul Lynch will be launching his debut novel, RED SKY IN MORNING (Quercus).
  Opening in Donegal in 1832, the novel follows land labourer Coll Coyle as he suffers the consequences of a single ill-judged act of rash violence. It’s a compelling tale, not least because of the power of the language, which put me in mind of Cormac McCarthy’s early work. There’s also a kind of epic, cinematic sweep to the events, which shouldn’t really be surprising – Paul Lynch was for many moons the film critic for the Sunday Tribune.
  I know Paul, so you may want to take my opinion with a pinch of salt, but I think RED SKY is a terrific piece of work. I particularly liked the tone, which seems to be pitched somewhere between the bleak fatalism of noir and the Fate-hounded tales of classical Greek tragedy.
  So there it is. RED SKY IN MORNING by Paul Lynch: it’s early days still, but I’d imagine it’ll be hailed as one of the most impressive Irish debuts of the year.

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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.