Meet Pat McNab, forty-five years old, and about to embark on a homicidal rampage sparked by matricide. Or is he?
Pat spent endless hours chain-smoking and propping up the counter of Sullivan's Select Bar (not that Mrs. McNab knew anything about it -- she and Timmy the barman didn't get along at all) or sitting on his mother's knee singing away together like some ridiculous two-headed human jukebox. But that was all before the story really began -- Emerald Germs of Ireland is in essence Pat McNab's post-matricide year.
Pat, who now spends many of his waking hours sitting by the window in his old dark house, watching videos and nibbling abstractedly on pieces of toast, reflects on those long-gone days with Mommy, while fending off the persistent interferences of his small-town neighbors: the puritanical Mrs. Tubridy; that irascible seller of turf, the Turf Man; Sgt. "Kojak" Foley, and other unwanted snoops who could soon come to regret their inquisitive, nose-poking ways.
This is Patrick McCabe at his fiendish best. Dark, emotionally powerful, and surreal, Emerald Germs of Ireland is also his funniest work to date, masterfully displaying the anarchic twists and turns that are the hallmarks of his comic genius.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. His other novels include The Butcher Boy, The Dead School, and Call Me the Breeze. With director Neil Jordan, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of The Butcher Boy.
McCabe's jokey verbosity and energetic narrative voice are on full display in this messy but manically vibrant novel. Pat McNab's social position in the dully parochial Irish village of Gullytown ranks above village idiot but below town drunk. Few of his fellow citizens would suspect the wild tales he tells are true, much less entertain the idea that he could be a serial killer. Norman Bates, however, has nothing on the middle-aged, reclusive Pat, who enjoys a beyond-Oedipal relationship with his mother (she recurrently appears long after he has dispatched her with a frying pan) and tallies up a final body count estimated "around the fifty, fifty-five mark." Over the course of McCabe's fluctuating, episodic novel, Pat's victims number fewer than two dozen, but each is linked with the popular songs and traditional ballads that reflect Pat's pathetic dreams of becoming a pop singer. The teetotaling, intrusive Mrs. Tubridy is downed with alcohol to the tune of "Whiskey on a Sunday," and a land-swindling neighbor is burned in Pat's barn with "Old Flames" for background music. At other times, Pat's hallucinatory fantasies transform his mundane life into a spaghetti western, sci-fi epic or gangster movie. While Pat bears more than a casual resemblance to Francie Brady, the sympathetic, psychotic hero of The Butcher Boy, this novel's heavy irony, mock verbosity and genre-juggling are more reminiscent of McCabe's recent "serial novel," Mondo Desperado. Although the Grand Guignol humor wears thin after the first several deaths, McCabe gives occasional revealing glimpses into Pat's damaged psyche and the stifling mindset of village life. The mixed results are a thoroughly Irish stew of pathos and bathos, deep melancholy and wild humor, cutting observation and pure blarney. 8-city author tour. (Mar.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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Seller: Powell's Bookstores Chicago, ABAA, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: UNSPECIFIED. 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Seller Inventory # Z0307213
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Seller: Project HOME Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
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Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. One of Patrick McCabe's funniest books'There is something special about the relationship we all have with our mothers.' Meet Pat McNab, forty five years old, often to be found propping up the bar of Sullivan's Select Bar (not that Mrs McNab knew that - oh, no - she and Timmy the barman didn't get along at all) or sitting on his mother's knee singing away together like some ridiculous two-headed human juke box. But that was before we begin the story - Emerald Germs of Ireland could, more accurately described as Pat McNab's post-matricide year.Patrick McCabe's new book tells the stories in the life of Pat McNab - a soft lad who is living with his dead mother and fending off the meddlesome ways of his small town neighbours. Mrs Tubridy, the turf man and the like. It has some quite golden moments of comedy as well as the maniacal twists and turns that are the hallmarks of McCabe's genius. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR006665910
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Hardcover. Condition: USED_GOOD. DJ will be clean and have at most light wear. Book will have been read but remains in excellent condition. Clean and tight binding. Cover may show slight wear. Contents will be clean and free from markings. Seller Inventory # 9999-9994526260
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Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. . 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # KOC0023557
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First Edition. Fine cloth copy in an equally fine dw. Particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. Physical description; 380 p. ; 23 cm. Subjects; Middle aged men Ireland ; Fiction. Insanity Ireland ; Fiction. Parricide Ireland ; Fiction. Serial murderers Ireland ; Fiction. 1 Kg. Seller Inventory # 280271
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Hardcover. First edition, first printing. Jacket spine foot is lightly creased; lighter wear on jacket spine head. Hardcover spine ends are bumped. Pages are clean and text is clear throughout. Binding is sound. AF. Used. Seller Inventory # 429634
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