Credit Where Credit's Due

So, unlike Abraham Lincoln, Fifty Grand is officially out! I'm very relieved. I kept thinking something terrible was going to intervene first, either a catastrophic comet strike or an alien invasion or maybe just the libel lawyers who could have put a kybosh on the whole thing. (The first two are products of my over imaginative fancy, the last however is realer than you'll ever know me hearties.) I don't know whether its because I come from a tribe of dour Ulster folks or only my pessimistic nature but I've always suspected that doom was around the corner; still, at this moment, I'm relieved and happy and I'd like to thank everyone at Henry Holt for doing such a great job with the book, especially, but not exclusively, Sarah Knight and Supurna Banerjee. I'd also like to give a shout out to Ger Brennan, Peter Rozovsky, Dec Burke and Ken Bruen for being early supporters. And big thank yous also to Bruce Grossman, Corey Wilde, Seana Graham, Mike Stone & Ann Giles for their early reviews. It's all down hill from here no doubt until I'm lying prone and broken in a dungy, nettle filled bog sheugh, but until that moment, from the giddy heights of publication day, I say thank you all.

I Invested 16 Bucks And Now I Have Fifty Grand!

"There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings."
---Quentin Crisp

I have a book coming out tomorrow. It's called Fifty Grand. You may be able to get it in bookstores but you may not. Shelf space is at a premium in most chain bookstores and managers will usually only stock authors who are proven unit shifters. You can however get 50G on Amazon or Powells or B&N.com and if you have a local mystery or indy bookstore they might have it. I worked very hard on this book and put a lot into it and although I'm not the best person to judge I think its a pretty tight read. If you do happen to get it I would certainly appreciate a review on Amazon or B&N or Good Reads.
Go raibh céad maith agat.

Adrian

Three Chords And The Truth

When I first started reading Cormac McCarthy's novels in high school it didn't initially occur to me how strange it was that I understood all the dialect words. McCarthy's early books were set in rural Tennessee and used such Ulster Scots colloquialisms as "sleekit," "skitter," "shite," "wean" etc. all of which were very familiar to me growing up in Northern Ireland. Later I got why this was so. Cormac McCarthy's Tennessee books paint a vivid picture of the Ulster Scots migrants to Appalachia and the world they live in: clannish, violent, musical, economically poor but culturally rich. The Ulster Scots (or Scotch Irish if you prefer) migrated from northern Ireland to America in the eighteenth century taking their customs, dialect, poetry and especially their fiddles with them. It's been well said that America's greatest contribution to world culture has been its music. African Americans invented Jazz, Blues, R&B and Rap, but the Ulster Scots invented country music or rather country music grew organically from their preexisting folk music and country music has a largely pessimistic outlook on the universe that comes from the bleak, fatalistic folkways of the Ulster Scots.
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Too few people realise that the history of the Irish in America does not begin with the potato famine but goes back a century earlier to the 1740 migrations from Ulster. The best book about this hidden history is probably Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer, but Senator Jim Webb has written an entertaining primer called Born Fighting, both of which are well worth a read. Part of Jim Webb's premise is that the Ulster Scots' fighting and a feuding ways meant that they were predisposed for military service and that Scotch-Irish officers were the backbone of Washington's Army, the Union and Confederate Armies in the Civil War, the Doughboys of WW1, the GIs of WW2 and Vietnam. There may be some truth in this. Although I've never had any desire to serve in the army (all that shouting in the cadet force put me right off) my little brother spent most of last year as an officer in Iraq, my dad was in the Royal Navy for twenty years and my grandfather fought in the trenches in WW1 for the duration. And of course it's well known that the British peacetime army was largely made up of Irish and Scots. Biology and culture are not destiny but maybe this is why I write (fairly) violent crime novels, not romance fiction. I just can't help it. Mercifully though all the country songs I wrote as a teenager have gone to that great storage locker in the sky.

A Confederacy of Dunces

Bono published his second editorial in The New York Times yesterday and as I was choking on my cornflakes I thought I've got to blog about this keek, but then I thought, what's the bloody point? Bono is beyond satire, if you can't see through him by now I cannot help. Besides hypocrisy and evil are everywhere triumphant and it was always thus. Reminds me of this poem by Mary Robinson (1758 - 1800) called January 1795 which I thought I'd just blog instead:


January 1795


Pavement slippery, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious;
Courtiers cringing and voracious;
Misers scarce and wretched heeding;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses;
Theatres, and meeting-houses;
Balls, where simpering misses languish;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing:
Commerce drooping, credit failing:
Placemen mocking subjects loyal;
Separations, weddings royal.

Authors who can't earn a dinner;
Many a subtle rogue a winner;
Fugitives for shelter seeking;
Misers hoarding, tradesmen breaking.

Taste and talents quite deserted;
All the laws of truth perverted;
Arrogance o'er merit soaring;
Merit silently deploring.

Ladies gambling night and morning;
Fools the works of genius scorning;
Ancient dames for girls mistaken;
Youthful damsels quite forsaken.

Some in luxury delighting;
More in talking than in fighting;
Lovers old, and beaux decrepid;
Lordlings empty and insipid.

Poets, painters, and musicians;
Lawyers doctors, politicians;
Pamphlets, newspapers, and odes
Seeking fame by different roads.

Gallant souls with empty purses;
Generals only fit for nurses;
School-boys, smit with martial spirit,
Taking place of veteran merit.

Honest men who can't get places,
Knaves who show unblushing faces:
Ruin hasten'd, peace retarded;
Candour spurn'd, and art rewarded.

Can You Hear Me Now?

If you prefer getting my novels in audiobook form (as apparently most of you do) then it might be time to break out the yesca and cerveza. Fifty Grand will be available from May 1 as a talking book from Blackstone Audio and your friendly neighbourhood Amazon and shortly thereafter Audible.com. The book is narrated by Paula Christensen who I think is this Paula Christensen (right) an actress from Buenos Aires, a city I visited last year, mainly because of its connections to Jorge Luis Borges. JLB is a prose idol of mine who also turned some of my favourite quotes including: "Humiliation, unhappiness, discord are the ancient foods of heroes," and "the flattery of posterity is worth about the same as contemporary flattery which is worth absolutely nothing." Good old Jorge. If you want to hear a sample of Paula's excellent narration then click here.

Rashomon With Pizza Jokes

One of most enjoyable novels I've read this year is Amara Lakhous's Clash of Civilizations Over An Elevator in the Piazza Vittorio. It is a superior mystery novel set in a contemporary Rome that is filled with immigrants, intellectuals, indigents, and the borderline insane. Eleven apartment building residents tell their side of the story as we slowly find out what happened to the Storm Front skinhead who has been found dead in the building's elevator. Suspicion falls upon the saintly Amedeo who has gone missing and who seems to be the only one keeping order among the fissiparous residents of the run down block of flats in the otherwise charming Piazza Vittorio. Amadeo has secrets of his own, many of which are revealed through the series of diverse narratives and vignettes that comprise the novel. Each narrator's truth is complimentary and we get a full picture of what life is like for the building's residents as well as short dissertations on Iranian cuisine, pizza, Italian manners and the tactics of the glorious Dutch football squad of the 1970's. According to my book jacket they are making a film of Clash of Civ. and although it's going to be very funny it would take a reborn Fellini to do justice to this hilarious and insightful book.

The Celtic New Wave in Crime Fiction

Ian Rankin kicked it off in Scotland, Ken Bruen, John Connolly and Colin Bateman ran with the ball in Ireland and now the Irish crime fiction boom is filtering down to the next generation. In the last month I have read three great crime novels from three new Ulster crime writers: David Park's The Truth Commissioner, Gerard Brennan's The Wee Rockets and last week I read Brian McGilloway's new book Bleed A River Deep. BARD is the third novel in McGilloway's Inspector Devlin series. Devlin is a great character because he is so ordinary, he is not a minor English poet, or an OCD riddled agoraphobe, or a drunken intellectual misanthrope he's just a regular copper trying to hold down his job in rural Donegal. The plot of BARD has a number of elements: a famous US senator is visiting the area and stirring up trouble everywhere he goes, a big hole in the middle of Donegal has become a literal gold mine, Devlin's personal life is becoming more complicated and the interaction between the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland is not exactly going smoothly. I'm not going to provide anymore spoilers but I will say that this novel can be read as a one off if you haven't encountered either of the other Inspector Devlin novels before. What impressed most about McGilloway is the terseness and economy of his prose style and the way he captures the wild and bleak landscape of Donegal, in my opinion Ireland's most beautiful county. BARD deserves a wider audience in the US and it'll be cool when Inspector Devlin becomes a hit TV series (or so the rumour mill suggests) for you to say - oh yeah I read those books years ago, I am sooo ahead of the curve. Do yourself a favour and get BARD and for a real treat, try all three of the Inspector Devlin novels.
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Last week I asked Brian a few quick questions about BARD and here's the Q&A below:

Q1. I was very impressed by the economy of your prose style. It feels extremely well honed and organic. Elmore Leonard says it takes about a decade to evolve a style. How long have you been perfecting your craft?
A: Thanks. Both my editor and I like quite lean writing, so I tend to pare stuff down as I write, because I know it’ll go in the edit anyway. I’ve been writing for years now, though only started writing crime with Borderlands. The first book I wrote was called One So high, about two psychiatrists in an asylum, one of whom is a patient. Actually, now I think about it, that was my second book: my first was the usual ‘Protestant and Catholic fall in love over the barricades’ guff you have to write when you live in Northern Ireland.

Q2. And as a follow up to that question, who are your major influences in the crime fiction and/or non crime fiction worlds.

A: I love crime fiction – particularly series novels. James Lee Burke is a big hero, likewise Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Robert Crais... I’m not a big fan of Victorian novels, but have a soft spot for Dracula and The Moonstone – I really like the epistolary nature of the books. In Irish crime, there are too many to list.

Q3. Donegal is an interesting place, it has a northern accent, it's the most northerly county in Ireland and yet its part of the "south". How influenced are you by the landscape and geography of Donegal or could you be writing these books anywhere?
A: I agree with everything you’ve said here – it’s an unusual place because of all the ambiguities. That’s what I like about it in terms of setting, tough and it suits Devlin, I hope. In physical terms, it is a county of extremes; you have beautiful Atlantic coastlines, stunning natural scenery and then sparse scrubland all within half an hour of where we live.

Q4. There seems to be a major boom in Irish crime writing at the moment. Is it the zeitgeist, or changing demographics, increasing urbanisation or what? Any theories?
A: I think crime is perfectly suited to deal with a lot of the contemporary issues with which so called literary fiction would struggle. Crime allows us to look at what’s going on in the country and present it as it really is, or a fictionalised version of that. At the same time, good crime fiction can combine pace, character and is or can be incredibly enjoyable to read. I think crime fiction probably reflects the unease in Ireland at the moment with increased lack of trust in the political and judicial institutions and the seeming lack of control over both the drugs trade and gangsterism in general. In the North, I think the end of the Troubles allowed writers to focus on ‘normal’ crime while using that as a way to evaluate what went on here for the past thirty years. Even non-roubles books still carry their shadow I think.

Q5. What's next for Brian McGilloway in the literary world?
A: I’ve finished the next Devlin novel which is called The Rising, and which I’ll have to start editing soon. It deals with the increasing drugs trade along the border and the various groups involved in it. It also reintroduces Caroline Williams again, though not as a Guard. After that, I’m planning a stand alone set in the North at the moment before I go back to Devlin.

Thank you, Brian. For more on the terrific Brian McGilloway check out Crime Scene Northern Ireland and the uber talented Dec Burke's Crime Always Pays.

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

Thank you Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders who has seen fit to give this blog a Grasshopper Award for blogging excellence. And here was me thinking I was just spewing any old rubbish post after post. Clearly Peter has sifted through that Dumpster of words to find a few valuable recyclables. And since it doesn't look like I'll have any other opportunity to do so I might as well just give you my Oscar acceptance speech which I wrote a while back: "Thank you members of the Academy. This is a great honor. I came here to Hollywood as a mere lad ten years ago with a simple dream and a plan - to stalk Phoebe Cates, kidnap her and make her fall in love with me. But tonight this award has made me forget that plan. Sorry Phoebe, you missed your chance, kid. This Award means a lot to me but it's a team effort and I accept this on behalf of the great team McKinty. I'd like to thank my manicurist Raul, my agent Bob, my aura reader Carol, my spirit guide Chief Running Bear, my stylist Ramon, my life coach Sue and of course Dr Larry Barnes who repaired my kneecaps after my unfortunate remark about Whitey Bulger. Thank you all. . . Finally, I dedicate this award to that brave prisoner of conscience Nelson Mandela, one day, good sir, I hope you will breathe the sweet air of freedom!"

Terry's Town

A couple of posts ago I was talking about Bellaghy in County Antrim which has put up a statue to commemorate the Seamus Heaney poem "Digging". Well Terry Pratchett, Sir Terry I should say, is getting an entire town in Somerset named after him. This from yesterday's Yorkshire Post: "Scores of fans dressed as Discworld characters turned out to see author Sir Terry Pratchett unveil road names at a new housing estate inspired by his fantasy world. Peach Pie Street and Treacle Mine Road can be found on the Kingwell Rise development in Wincanton, Somerset. Wincanton was officially twinned in 2002 with the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork from the novels, becoming the first UK town to link with a fictional place."

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Terry Pratchett is not that well known in the US. He writes whimsical fantasy novels that I read a lot of in high school. I met him when he came to our little university SF&F society and he was a very nice bloke. However if Heaney can get a statue and Pratchett can get a town named after him surely JK Rowling can get a small European country to call her own? Lichtenstein perhaps or maybe Monaco or Andorra? Come on Potter fans isn't this the next logical step? I hear New Zealand is thinking of changing its name to New Middlearth so you better move fast.

Nigel Tufnel Is On The Side Of The Good Guys

Two interesting music news stories from the BBC today:
Coldplay have denied, in a US federal court, that they copied parts of rock guitarist Joe Satriani's music for their hit song, Viva La Vida. Lawyers for the band argue that any similarities between the song and Satriani's If I Could Fly were not enough to warrant damages. Mr Satriani sued Coldplay in December, claiming they had used "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song. He is seeking a jury trial, damages and "any and all profits" from the song. In court papers filed in Los Angeles, Coldplay also claim Mr Satriani's song "lacks originality" and should not receive copyright protection.

You can compare the two songs here. I'm no legal scholar (well ok I've got a law degree and an MA in Jurisprudence but who's counting) however if I were Chris Martin & Coldplay I'd be worried, that defence of theirs about Mr Satriani's song lacking originality - not just breathtakingly arrogant and condescending but also very shaky. The second BBC story is much happier:

Spinal Tap have announced a "world tour" consisting of a single June date at London's Wembley Arena. The tour marks the 25th anniversary of mockumentary film, This is Spinal Tap, which launched the band's career. The band will be backed by 1960s folk trio The Folksmen, the focus of another spoof film, 2003's A Mighty Wind. Spinal Tap's lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel commented: "If we're going to do a World tour on only one night, at least it's this world." Bassist Derek Smalls added: "one night is not enough, and it's way too much". Spinal Tap have used a variety of drummers over the years due several untimely deaths, including a spontaneous combustion on stage. The rest of the line-up for the world tour has not been announced but the group paid tribute to former members. Singer and rhythm guitarist David St Hubbins said: "This show will be dedicated to all of our drummers who have passed on, either to their reward or to middle management at Sainsbury's."

So how do you bring these two stories together in one place? Well by watching this YouTube of course!

Down These Green Streets

Archmage and Grand Vizier of Crime Always Pays Declan Burke has taken another step along his path towards world domination by releasing further details of the book Down These Green Streets - the first, only, and surely to be definitive essay collection on the history of Irish crime fiction. Declan (don't call him Dekkers) had the idea a few moons ago, he pitched it to those boffins and egg heads at the Irish Arts Council and they unsurprisingly gave him the go ahead. The snowball has rolled to such an extent that serious names have got on board (ok I know this is a mixed metaphor just relax) including Booker Prize winner John Banville, best selling (and prize winning) novelist and screenwriter Colin Bateman and the brilliant and inscrutable Eoin MacNamee to name but a few. Mr. Burke has even dropped hints of trans-Atlantic contributors of the very big gun variety which he will reveal in the fullness of time. Down These Green Streets also comes equipped with a title pun so good I think it displaces my own personal favourite We'll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews.

I Can Dig It - Heaney Poem Gets Statue

The town of Bellaghy in Northern Ireland has put up a statue to commemorate the Seamus Heaney poem 'Digging'. I do not know of many other statues in the world that commemorate poems, poets yes, but not usually actual poems themselves and certainly it must be a rare honour to see the work of a living writer so memoralised. 'Digging' of course is a canonical work of modern Irish literature; it was one of the future Noble Prize winner Seamus Heaney's first publications and it has been anthologized more than a hundred times. The picture I found on google shows Seamus Heaney and two anonymous council (?) officials with the massive bronze statue. Maybe this will inspire my local council in Carrickfergus to put up a statue to Louis MacNeice, our famous local poet, but considering the fact that they demolished his beautiful home without a thought for the cultural impact I suspect this is unlikely.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

- Seamus Heaney

Guest Blogger Review - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

by Arwynn McKinty (aged 6)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the story of a boy called Charlie Bucket who is very poor who lives with grandparents. One day he finds the golden ticket to go into the chocolate factory owned by Mr. Willy Wonka. He goes with his grandpa Joe. There are four other kids on the tour of the factory and bad things happen to all of them. Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river. Violet ate the magic bubblegum and she blew up and looked like a giant blueberry. Mike Teavee climbed inside the TV and got very small. Veruca Salt goes into the nut making room and the squirrels throw her into a big hole. But nothing bad happens to Charlie so Mr. Willy Wonka lets him own the factory. And then he lived there with his grandmas and grandpas. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was my favourite book ever!

The Journey is its Own Reward

A genre I've always enjoyed is travel writing. I've never been tempted to do a travel book myself because I don't really like talking to strangers on trains or making copious notes about my trips - two things that are essential if you want to be the next Paul Theroux. My favourite travel writers include: Mark Twain, Norman Lewis, Rudyard Kipling, Eric Newby, Robert Byron, Paul Theroux, Peter Matthiessen, Evelyn Waugh, Jan Morris, Graham Greene, Freya Stark, Jonathan Raban, Robyn Davidson et. al. But my two all time favourite travel books are The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry Garrard and A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. I'll blog about Cherry-Garrard another time but since he's still with us I thought I'd talk here about Fermor. In 1933 Paddy Fermor was 18 years old and washed up, he'd been expelled from school and couldn't get into university or the army and had no idea what to do with his life. So without speaking any modern European language (of course he was proficient in Latin and ancient Greek) he decided to walk from London to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the story of that trip, or at least the first third of it, being an account of his wanderings across newly Nazified Germany and into Austria and Hungary. Fermor began the book forty years after he took the journey and it gave him a lot of time to ruminate and contemplate the meaning of his wanderings, and, like a fine Bowmore single malt, 40 years maturation obviously leads to perfection. A Time of Gifts is a wonderful book filled with a young man's enthusiasm and an older man's wisdom. It's packed with beautiful descriptions, funny incidents and thoughtful commentary on the people and places he encounters. Much to his embarrassment young and older women seem to fallen in love with Fermor left and right and he had a knack for falling in love himself as well the ability to pick up German, Hungarian, Romanian and Greek.
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After his Constantinople journey Fermor moved to Greece and he was there when WW2 broke out. The British recruited him to be a secret agent operating behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied Crete, where, somewhat incredibly, his small band of fighters managed to capture the German general in charge of the entire island - a tale which was told in the book and film Ill Met by Moonlight. After the war Leigh Fermor travelled in the Americas and spent time in Greek Orthodox monastic retreats. There's a great interview with Fermor in the May 2003 Paris Review which isn't available online and a nice New Yorker piece here which unfortunately requires registration to read the full thing.