'Like a noisy night out with all the people who made you', is how Bono describes a new novel by Patrick McCabe.
'In a small town in Northern Ireland, in the psychedelic-gone-wrong
atmosphere of the late seventies, Joey Tallon embarks on a journey of
selfhood, of redemption, and of rebirth. A man deranged by desire, and
longing for belonging, Tallon searches for his 'place of peace' - a
spiritual landscape located somewhere between Ireland and Iowa, and maybe
between heaven and hell...'
That's a brief synopsis of a new novel, Call Me The Breeze, by the
acclaimed Irish writer Pat McCabe, best known for The Butcher Boy and
Breakfast on Pluto. His latest novel, already out in Europe and now
published in the US, has been highly praised by Bono who calls it a 'dizzy
drunk book'.
'Like a noisy night out,' Bono writes, 'With all the people who made you
the geeks, the girlfriends, the bullies, the rock stars, your gauche selves.
'Pat McCabe is back with a dizzy drunk book that leaves you the next day
with a sore head and heart from the laughter and smoke of ideas too big for
Joey Tallons pants until suddenly they're not and we see into an Ireland
where everything seems possible, we watch Joey being born, he delivers
himself.'
From Tallon's punk rock beginnings, to his stewardship of his prison's
literary society, to his brief tenure as director of the Youth in Action
Creative Arts Awareness Scheme, and finally to his bull-like charge into the
political arena, Joey's journey toward enlightenment and deliverance takes
readers into the innermost heart of a man at odds with himself and the
violent, sometimes surreal world around him.
McCabe is the author of seven novels including Music on Clinton Street,
Carn, The Butcher Boy, a finalist for the UK's Booker Prize - and made into
a film by Neil Jordan - Breakfast on Pluto (also a Booker nominee) and most
recently, Emerald Germs of Ireland.
More here
www.amazon.com
