The Irish Book Awards: And The Winner Is …

The Irish Book Awards shortlists were announced last night, with the details coming courtesy of Irish Publishing News, and congratulations to all nominees, and particularly RTE’s Ryan Tubridy, whose JFK IN IRELAND was nominated in three categories, despite being published on October 28th - the day the awards shortlists were announced. Which isn’t bad going, and reflects incredibly well on the (koff) perspicacity of the judging panel. Not that I begrudge Tubbers his nominations, I like him a lot as a radio presenter, and he’s done more than his fair share to promote Irish books over the years. Still, nominations in three categories, for a book published on the day of the award nominations? It wouldn’t be like the Irish Book Awards folk to be chasing the RTE imprimatur, would it?
  Anyhoo, onto the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year category, in which six novels are represented. To wit:

CITY OF LOST GIRLS by Declan Hughes
TIME OF DEATH by Alex Barclay
FAITHFUL PLACE by Tana French
THE MISSING by Jane Casey
DARK TIMES IN THE CITY by Gene Kerrigan
THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville

  Given the nature of such lists, and the fact that last year was the strongest yet for Irish crime writing, there’s bound to be a bit of ‘Oi, but where’s …?’ etc. And, while it’s hard to quibble with most of the nominations, there are some notable absentees. No Ken Bruen, for starters. No Colin Bateman. No Adrian McKinty, Arlene Hunt or Brian McGilloway, all of whom published the finest novels of their career to date in the last twelve months. There’s also no PEELER by Kevin McCarthy, which was one of the best Irish crime novels of 2010, nor THE HOLY THIEF by William Ryan (which was nominated for a CWA award), and ditto for Conor Fitzgerald’s very fine THE DOGS OF ROME. McCarthy, Ryan and Fitzgerald are debutant writers, of course, but they don’t show up in the Best Newcomer of the Year either, although it’s good to see that Niamh O’Connor’s IF I DON’T SEE YOU AGAIN does make a showing there, as does Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE.
  The glaring absentee for me, though, is Alan Glynn’s WINTERLAND, which has a strong claim on being the best Irish crime novel of the last five years, let alone the last twelve months. Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to me, but then what would I know, I’m just blinded by bitterness that they didn’t take my Kindle-only publication of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS under consideration. Boo, etc.
  Elsewhere, it’s nice to see that Ed O’Loughlin’s NOT UNTRUE & NOT UNKIND made the Best Newcomer list, although it’s more than disappointing that it’s not nestling in the Irish Novel of the Year category. I’ve only read two in that category, Paul Murray’s SKIPPY DIES and Colm Toibin’s BROOKLYN, and while SKIPPY DIES is a terrific book, NOT UNTRUE & NOT UNKIND is by any measure superior to the vastly overrated BROOKLYN. Incidentally, and while we’re on an Alan Glynn-related rant, WINTERLAND deserved its place in the Irish Novel of the Year category as well as the Crime Fiction one.
  Staying with the Best Newcomer award for a moment, does anyone seriously believe that Amy Huberman’s debut offering was a better novel than Peter Murphy’s JOHN THE REVELATOR? Like, seriously?
  Elsewhere, Derek Landy’s SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT: MORTAL COIL turns up in the Children’s Book of the Year (Senior) category, and here at CAP we send out all kinds of good vibes to Benji Bennett, whose self-published ADAM’S PIRATE TREASURE made the Junior category.
  Finally, how did Ruth Dudley Edwards’ epic AFTERMATH: THE OMAGH BOMBING (which won the CWA non-fiction prize) not manage to make it into the Non-Fiction Book of the Year category? What were the judges thinking of? Too busy ensuring that Amy Huberman’s HELLO HEARTBREAK was squeezed into two categories, perhaps, in order to provide a little glamour for the awards ceremony?
  Two words, folks: FOR. SHAME.

The Sun Comes Up On Galway Bay: Or, Jack Taylor Hits The Silver Screen

‘Jack Taylor’, the pilot for the movies based on Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS, screened last night on TV3, and I have to say - reluctantly - that I don’t buy Iain Glen (above, left) in the lead. It doesn’t help that his faux-Irish accent wanders all over the map, but that’s not the biggest problem.
  The script, and particularly in the voice-overs, makes something whimsical of Jack Taylor’s fatalism. In the movie, Jack Taylor is a broth of a boy, prone to the odd eye-twinkle, a tough man to deal with if you push him too hard.
  In the novels, or in my reading of them at least, Jack Taylor is a dangerous bastard to know, a man fuelled on anger and Jameson, a man who is as hard as only the truly brittle can be, who know that just one more shove or punch or insult could shatter the façade.
  It also doesn’t help that the movie, being a movie, needed to make of THE GUARDS a straightforward narrative of investigation, whereas the novel, and all the Taylor novels, are a post-modern take on the detective story, for the most part philosophical ruminations occasionally linked by the need to have some investigative narrative.
  I suppose the difference is that, in the movie, Jack Taylor was investigating a series of crimes, rather than investigating Galway itself as a microcosm of the new Ireland.
  There was a lot to like, it has to be said, not least of which was the depiction of Galway city, and there were some good performances in the minor roles. And hey, maybe Iain Glen has the chops to convince an audience that isn’t familiar with the Bruen novels. Fans, though, will be disappointed, I think. For some promo vids, and to make up your own mind, clickety-click here …
  Meanwhile, it’s been a busy week for Irish crime fiction. Staying with TV3, the ever-radiant Alex Barclay was on the Ireland AM couch, talking up her latest offering, TIME OF DEATH. The conversation includes a very nice shout-out to John Connolly and Declan Hughes - clickety-click here for more …
  Staying with Declan Hughes … I don’t know if you could call Emma Donoghue’s new novel, ROOM, a crime novel, even though it concerns itself with some rather despicable criminal activity, but Squire Hughes was suitably impressed when reviewing it for the Irish Times. All the details are here …
  Staying with reviews: the eagle-eyed Maxine Clarke has organised her reviews by country over at the Petrona blog, and her introduction to her Irish reviews cites Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway, Alan Glynn and, erm, yours truly. But don’t let that put you off - there’s some really good stuff just about here …
  Elsewhere, Peter Rozovsky reviews Declan Hughes’ latest, CITY OF LOST GIRLS, while the good word has already started to tumble in for Stuart Neville’s COLLUSION …
  Finally, and veering off the straight-and-narrow of crime fiction, congrats to all who were responsible for having Dublin declared a UNESCO City of Literature last week; and congrats too to Irish scribes Emma Donoghue and Paul Murray, both of whom were long-listed for the Booker Prize, for ROOM and SKIPPY DIES respectively.
  Nice work, folks. Very nice indeed …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: SKIPPY DIES by Paul Murray

I reviewed Paul Murray’s SKIPPY DIES for RTE’s Arena programme alongside Edel Coffey a couple of weeks back, working off the (koff) ‘notes’ below. I haven’t listened back to the show, but hopefully it was all a bit more comprehensible than the notes suggest - although if it was, the credit is all Edel’s. To wit:

Set in the fictional Seabrook boys’ boarding school in South County Dublin, Skippy Dies embraces a veritable host of characters in its 661 pages, including the Acting Principal Greg Costigan, history teacher Howard, school psychopath Carl, St Brigid’s girl Lori, temporary Geography teacher Aurelie and teenage drug dealer Barry. Its main characters, however, are Daniel ‘Skippy’ Juster and his best friend Ruprecht, who is a teenage genius bent on validating the M-Theory of multiple universes. Skippy, on the other hand, just wants Lori fall in love with him …
  The title is something of a spoiler (!) here, given that Skippy dies in the prologue, during a doughnut eating contest with Ruprecht, with his last acting being to scrawl the name ‘Lori’ in jam on the floor. The novel then flashes back to explore how Skippy’s death came to pass.
  At 661 pages, Skippy Dies is a pretty long novel that trawls long and wide for its inspirations – anything from quantum physics to the war poetry of Robert Graves, teenage drug dealing, anorexia, adolescent infatuation, adult infidelity, the impact of religious orders on the spiritual and physical well-being of school pupils ... For the first 50 pages or so I thought it a little too clever-clever for its own good, and dreaded having to wade through another 600 pages. By the time I was finished, I would gladly have read another 600.
  Skippy, even though he is largely a passive character, is hugely endearing, a bright-eyed, intelligent chap who is massively vulnerable and finds himself abandoned by his family at a critical stage of his life. The overweight Ruprecht, more of a comic sidekick in the beginning, comes into his own as a compelling character – his obsessions with parallel universes and time travel, etc., are never jarring in one so young.
  There are some wonderfully malevolent characters too, particularly that of Greg Costigan, a man who will preserve the tradition and ethos of Seabrook College regardless of the cost, and who encapsulates the phrase ‘the banality of evil’.
  Murray is an elegant writer (Lori’s smile, for example, is described as “bright and strong, a kinder, warmer cousin of light”), a superb storyteller and plotter, and a very funny comic writer who had me laughing out loud on numerous occasions. Mario, the permanently horny teen friend of Skippy’s, is an hilarious comic creation.
  The novel comes in two formats, one the 661-page novel, the other in which the novel is chopped up into three distinct books. This, presumably, reflects the short attention span of readers today, but my advice is to go for the 661-page book, because it’s a very difficult novel to put down.
  All told, Skippy Dies is a hugely satisfying novel that blends comedy and tragedy in a story that is, despite the timeless themes, always relevant to the Ireland of today.