ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL: From Zero To Hero

The Sunday Times’ Culture section did me up a kipper over the weekend, giving over two-thirds of a page to a review of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL by Kristoffer Mullin, and plugging said review on the Contents page with the line, ‘Declan Burke’s genre-busting thriller about blowing up a hospital is a blast.’
  I’d have been happy enough with that much as a review, to be perfectly honest, not least because the Sunday Times tends to parsimonious with ye olde compliments - it’s fair to say, while drawing a discreet veil over the gory details, that they were less than impressed with DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS.
  It’s also fair to say that Kristoffer Mullin liked AZC. Under the headline, ‘Raising the Stakes’, the gist runs thusly:

“Burke’s peers have showered him with plaudits, describing ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL as a wildly inventive take on noir fiction, and comparing its creator to Flann O’Brien, Raymond Chandler, John Fowles and Paul Auster. It’s hard to disagree, though another name should be thrown in there: Bret Easton Ellis, with his skewed perspectives, acid humour and pop-culture references.
  “Karlsson is a thrilling creation, up there with the Patrick Batemans of literature. Misanthropic and bitterly cynical, the hospital porter is also philosophical and occasionally inspired. The twisted logic that leads to him plotting to blow up the hospital is a masterpiece of unsavoury reflection on history and Darwinism blended with a hefty dose of sociopathy, yet always leavened with pitch-black wit.
  “That humour is a constant throughout the novel […]
  “Yet for all the literary devices and sharp humour, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL would be little more than a clever diversion if it did not also succeed as a thriller. Burke ratchets up the tension beautifully towards the climax, its inevitability foreshadowed by an opening scene that becomes all the more disturbing in retrospect as the novel progresses.
  To borrow from [Ken] Bruen’s blurb, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year: funny and disturbing, it also straddles a fine line between the absurd and the profound. It never forgets the conventions of crime fiction, while simultaneously subverting them. A triumph.” - Kristoffer Mullin, Sunday Times

  Funnily enough, and vis-à-vis the Bret Easton Ellis reference, the title ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is in part a nod towards LESS THAN ZERO, which is a very fine novel and a terrific title.
  Anyway, there you have it. We’re kind of running out of print media review outlets here in Ireland, given that the Irish Times has had its say, and the Irish Independent, and the Sunday Business Post, so I guess that that’s probably the last review of its kind. Still, if that does happen to be the case, it’s a very, very nice way to go out. I thank you kindly, one and all …

Billy The Id Rides Again

Well, it can only go downhill from here. The launch of ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL during the week was terrific fun, and this morning the first print reviews hove into sight, injecting yet another blast of adrenaline into what has already been something of a hi-octane week. First off, Kevin Power over at the Irish Times, under the very cute headline, ‘The Metafictional Adventures of Billy the Id’:

“Thus begins a fascinating hybrid of MISERY, AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN, and who knows what else … There’s a thematic richness, and a level of stylistic control, to ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL that makes it soar. Far from being ‘just’ a cleverly postmodern crime novel, this book is, among other things, a meditation on the writing life; a parable about terrorism; a bleak satire of the Irish healthcare system; and a fable about life, death and family responsibility … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL isn’t quite like anything else you’ve read, in any genre. It’s clever, intimate, passionate, and funny: altogether a wonderful achievement.” - Irish Times

  Stephen King, Flann O’Brien and John Fowles? Those burbling sounds you hear are yours truly trying to mumble my thanks whilst struggling to cope with being about two fathoms out of my depth. For the full review, clickety-click here …

  Meanwhile, over at the Irish Independent, Edel Coffey is in equally generous mood. To wit:

“What is most refreshing about Burke’s book is its ambition. It is rare that a so-called genre book attempts to wrest free of its constraints and do something entirely different. ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a genre-buster. Clever, funny, challenging, surreal, unexpected and entirely original.” - Irish Independent

  For the full review, clickety-click here …

  So there you have it. I genuinely don’t know what to say to all that, and it’s probably best if I say nowt - people in shock do tend to say the daftest things. For your usual ration of garrulous non sequiturs, tune back in tomorrow, by which time normal service should have resumed …

Countdown To ZERO

The votes are in, the die is cast, and the cover for the forthcoming ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL by your humble correspondent has been decided (right). As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, I had a personal preference for a different cover, one featuring a gas canister, but good sense has prevailed and I’m more than happy with the final decision. If I’m honest, it actually reflects the tone of the book better than my own preference: for some reason, the artwork puts me in mind of a series of Kurt Vonnegut reissues from some years back, and as AZC is a blackly comic novel, it seems appropriate to alert the potential reader to that fact.
  For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, by the way, the blurb elves have been wibbling thusly:

Who in their right mind would want to blow up a hospital?

  “Close it down, blow it up - what’s the difference?”

  Hospital porter Billy K is a man on a mission: to highlight how vulnerable hospitals are, and to demonstrate how easily they might be demolished in a terrorist attack.

  But no one is listening. Deranged by logic, driven by a perverse passion, Billy may have to blow up a hospital in order to prove his point. Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned …

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

  So there you have it, and thank you kindly, Mr Bruen. Other generous commendations run as follows:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” - John Banville, author of THE SEA

“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” - Reed Farrel Coleman, author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill, author of SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S

“If you want to find something new and challenging, comic crime fiction is now the place to go … Declan Burke [is] at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the clichés and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works.” - Colin Bateman, author of NINE INCHES

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a surreal rollercoaster of a read, full of the blackest humour, and yet poignant. An outrageously funny novel ... The joy is in the writing itself, all sparky dialogue and wry observation, so smooth that when it cuts, it’s like finding razor blades in honey.” - Deborah Lawrenson, author of THE LANTERN

“Burke has written a deep, lyrical and moving crime novel … an intoxicating and exciting novel of which the master himself, Flann O’Brien, would be proud.” - Adrian McKinty, author of FIFTY GRAND

  ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL will be published next month by the good folk at Liberties Press, and should be available for pre-order any day soon. Rest assured that I’ll keep you posted …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: Joseph Finder

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
John Fowles’ THE MAGUS. Does that count? If not, maybe THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain. Or Raymond Chandler’s THE LONG GOODBYE. Or how about THE DAY OF THE JACKAL? THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE? I could keep going, but it’s starting to get depressing. There are some really terrific crime novels.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
Too many to choose from. But I guess I’d say the Jackal. I like the fact that he’s always “dining excellently” and hiring gunsmiths to design a sniper rifle that looks like a crutch and having kinky sex. I once built a French vacation with my wife around places the Jackal went. My wife and daughter and I have a ritual when we travel. When we’re in a foreign airport, we each choose someone most likely to be the Jackal. It might be a Franciscan nun or an old lady in a wheelchair. Whoever seems the most unlikely. Charles De Gaulle Airport is especially good for this game.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t believe in guilty pleasure. No pleasure should bring us guilt. As a guy who writes novels that are sold in airports, I’m no snob about reading popular fiction, though I have no patience for bad prose. I like some comic books and graphic novels, but they’ve gotten so sophisticated these days that they’re worlds from the Superman and Archie and Richie Rich comics I read as a kid. Some people might be surprised that I’m a big fan of Brian Azzarello’s graphic novels. 100 BULLETS was brilliant.

Most satisfying writing moment?
Nothing compares to getting so lost in a scene that I look up and a couple of hours have gone by. That’s what gets me through all the frustration.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
I haven’t read enough Irish crime novels, but Declan Hughes’ CITY OF LOST GIRLS was fantastic.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Tana French’s THE LIKENESS could be a great psychological thriller.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst: People expect you to pick them up from the airport because you don’t have a real job. The best: being your own boss. And in the category of worst and best: the hours. Theoretically I set my own, but I’m never really not working.

The pitch for your next book is …?
Nick Heller continues his one-man battle against jerks, bullies, and liars at home and abroad.

Who are you reading right now?
Walter Tevis’s THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT. How did I miss that? Charles Cumming’s THE TRINITY SIX was a great old-school spy thriller. I’ve been rereading Chandler and John D. McDonald. Man, were they good writers.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. No question about it. You know, I’m a decent cook, and sometimes our dinner guests compliment me by saying, You should open your own restaurant. To which I reply, why the hell would I want to work that hard when I’d much rather eat a great meal prepared by someone else? Writing is one of the best jobs in the world, because you get paid to make stuff up. But it’s still a job. Reading, on the other hand, is like dining at a restaurant. Someone else does the hard work so you can sit back and enjoy the meal.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Surprise, reverse, reveal. They’re posted on my desk.

Joseph Finder’s BURIED SECRETS is published by Headline.

A GONZO NOIR: Ken Bruen Speaks

God bless Sir Kenneth of Bruen (right, portrait by KT McCaffrey). I was in Galway on Friday night, and got an email from Sir Ken saying he’d received his m/s copy of the current humble offering, and that he’d be back to me within a week with a verdict. Which was all kinds of good news.
  He emailed me again on Saturday afternoon, to say he’d read the book in three hours straight. Sir Ken being Sir Ken, he was extravagantly generous with his verdict, the gist of which runneth thusly:

“A GONZO NOIR is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, Author of AMERICAN SKIN

  People, you have no idea how much I’d love to believe I can write as well as John Fowles …
  Anyway, that’s the first official reaction to A GONZO NOIR. It’s a nice buzz, and for a couple of reasons. The first, obviously, is that it’s from Ken Bruen, which is just terrific. Also, the fact that Ken has an eye for the screwy narrative, for playing around with the conventions and bending things out of shape, is a nice bonus, because A GONZO NOIR does its best to bend things out of shape, just a little bit. And that bit about reading it in three hours straight … well, that’s just about the best thing a writer can hear.
  Today was one of the good days, folks …

Abzorba Da Greek

Not long before he died, Kingsley Amis was asked in an interview what he’d do differently if he could live his life over again. He thought for a while and said, “Well, I wouldn’t read THE MAGUS again.”
  I love THE MAGUS. I know it’s not fashionable anymore, and that no one seems to read John Fowles these days, but I’ve read THE MAGUS three times (maybe four, I’ve started leaving out the last bit), and I’m gearing up to read it again. Which is a bit of a commitment, it being a re-read of 656 pages (554 if you stop where I generally stop: I was marooned; wingless and leaden, as if I had been momentarily surrounded, then abandoned, by a flock of strange winged creatures; emancipated, mysterious, departing, as singing birds pass on overhead; leaving a silence spent with voices. Which seems to me to be an excellent way to end a novel, and the experience of reading a novel, and writing one). Anyway, THE MAGUS is set on a Greek island, and Greek islands are the literary equivalent of cat-nip for yours truly.
  I’m also partial to a good private eye, and fine writing, and Paul Johnston combines all three in A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE, which features Alex Mavros. Quoth Mr & Mrs Kirkus:

Famous for his Quintilian Dalrymple series based in 2020s Edinburgh, the first of which won the John Creasy Memorial Dagger in 1997, Johnston changes location for this thriller, set on a Greek island. Trigono is breathtakingly beautiful and seemingly peaceful. But is there an evil hidden beneath its paradisiacal exterior? Rosa Ozal, a young Turkish-American beauty, has gone missing and the clue to her last known whereabouts is a postcard from Trigono. Alex Mavros is the private detective hired to find her. But when he reaches the island he discovers a community intent on hiding its secrets, and the task of finding any information regarding Rosa is not an easy one. The sudden deaths of a young island couple, found naked in a fishing boat with terror on their faces, make the atmosphere even more sombre. And is there a connection with the dreadful events that took place on Trigono during the Second World War? The plot moves on apace and soon Alex is confronted with a terrifying murderer. This is a high-class thriller, tautly written with the contrast between the idyllic surroundings and the shadow of violent danger adding to the charged atmosphere. Johnston's plotting and characterization are just as adept as they are in his Dalrymple books, and this is a novel to be enjoyed by anyone who loves thrilling prose and action-packed storylines.

  Nice. The good news is that the Mavros trilogy is (are?) being republished in April, with A DEEPER SHADE OF BLUE renamed CRYING BLUE MURDER. I prefer the original title, but there you go. THE LAST RED DEATH and THE GOLDEN SILENCE complete the triptych, but neither of them are set on Greek islands (the Peloponnese and Athens, respectively), which is a total bummer.
  Anyone got any suggestions for Greek island novels? The last one I read was the very fine SONGS OF BLUE AND GOLD, and I need my fix.

The Curious Case Of The Non-Meme Meme

Memes being the interweb’s version of pesky chain-letters, I’m not going to tag anyone in particular for the meme-ish notion below. But feel free to run with it, and link back here if you like. For simplicity’s sake I’ve kept it to one book per author, and the idea is that the last book on your list is the book you’d most like to die reading, if you had to die reading. To wit:

A long, long time in the future, in a galaxy far away, the doctor says, “Sorry, but you’ve only got a month to live.” What ten books would you re-read in your last month?
  My choices runneth thusly:

THE MAGUS – John Fowles
THE LONG GOODBYE – Raymond Chandler
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (and ‘Teddy’ from NINE STORIES) – JD Salinger
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
THE GREEK MYTHS – Robert Graves
PROSPERO’S CELL – Lawrence Durrell
THE DOUBLE TONGUE – William Golding
THE ODYSSEY – Homer
STARDUST – John and Mary Gribbin
PETER PAN – JM Barrie

  For anyone interested, I'd like the theme music from ‘Match of the Day’ played as they carry the coffin out. Cheers.

On Crime Fiction And Respectability

When an author references another writer’s novel twice in one book, it’s fair to presume that he or she is drawing attention and inviting comparisons. In THE KILLING CIRCLE, Andrew Pyper twice refers to THE MAGUS, the John Fowles novel which blends a number of genre staples, among them the thriller, the war novel, the supernatural and quasi-scientific propositions.
  Asked at an advanced age what he would change if he could live his life over again, Kingsley Amis thought for a moment and said, “Well, I wouldn’t read THE MAGUS.” I love it, although I know a lot of people hate it. But the point about THE MAGUS is that it’s a literary novel that has a hell of a lot of fun with mashing up genres.
  THE KILLING CIRCLE also blends genres, most obviously those of crime and horror, although, given that its narrator is an aspiring author who lacks the imagination to create a unique story, it’s also intended as a serious meditation on the writing process. In that context, the references to THE MAGUS are presumably intended as reminders to the reader that Andrew Pyper is engaged in a literary activity, despite the genre staples.
  Which brings me to a comment Adrian McKinty – yep, him again – left on a post further down the page, vis-à-vis the consecration of crime fiction as ‘interesting and important’. To wit:

“One thing though about Banville, Rushdie, Chabon etc. writing crime novels is that they would never have ventured into the territory in the first place had not the zeitgeist begun to see crime books not as disposable pulp fiction but actually as interesting and important. When the Library of America started bringing out Chandler, Hammett, Cain and Highsmith in annotated quality hardbacks, it was a sign that the critical community had embraced those writers and no longer despised them. The rising tide began to float the boats of the whole genre.”

  Writing about the inclusion of Rob Smith’s CHILD 44 on the Booker Prize long-list for the LA Times recently, Sarah Weinman made a similar point:

“And yet, if CHILD 44 -- a serial killer novel that takes place in the last years of Stalin’s Russia -- appears at first glance to be a brash upstart, a closer look suggests that its inclusion might not be so unlikely after all. Indeed, this is the most recent example of the blurring of the line between crime fiction and literature, which raises hope that the so-called genre wars are lurching toward, if not an end, then at least a tentative cease-fire.”

  Yes, yes – but is this actually a good thing? Crime writing has always had stylists as fine as anything the literary world can offer, if only the reader has eyes to see, but the idea that respectability is about to be conferred on the genre seems somehow grotesque, and not least because the respectability is to be conferred by the literary types.
  I write crime fiction, but I’m not a crime fiction nut. As I’ve said elsewhere, crime fiction only accounts for about a quarter of my reading, or maybe as much as a third. I read for all kinds of reasons, although mainly because I’d probably go blind if I didn’t. I can read Salman Rushdie and John McFetridge, say, as I did earlier this year, and be equally impressed by both.
  But when I read crime fiction, I read it for the adrenaline buzz of knowing that it is getting under the skin of the world we live in, broaching taboos and creeping down the dark alleyways that we’d prefer weren’t so dark, or there at all, and doing it with an authenticity and immediacy that makes it utterly believable, even if I’d rather it wasn’t true. And as far as I’m concerned, respectability is far more likely to blunt that edge than hone it. To mangle Groucho Marx, I don’t want to be in any club that’d have me.
  Every writer should aspire to be as good as Rushdie, Chandler, Highsmith and Fowles. But that’s not the same thing as aspiring to write a Booker Prize nominee, or to write a novel worthy of the approval of the self-anointed adjudicators of quality.
  I hope for Rob Smith’s sake that he wins the Booker Prize. But I hope for crime fiction’s sake that he doesn’t.