Showing results by author "Patrick McCabe" in All Categories

When I was a lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs. Nugent. Welcome to the mind of Francie Brady. Just what Francie did to Mrs. Nugent is the final, terrifying act of a young boy at the end of a relentless...

A swirling, psychedelic, bleakly funny fugue by the Booker-shortlisted author of The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto. Una Fogarty, suffering from dementia in a seaside nursing home, would be all alone without her brother Dan, whose epic free-verse monologue tells their family story. Exile from Ireland and immigrant life in England. Their mother’s trials as a call girl. Young Una’s search for love in a seemingly haunted hippie squat, and the two-timing Scottish stoner poet she’ll never get over.

Once, Redmond Hatch was in heaven, married to the lovely Catherine and father to enchanting daughter Immy. But then he took them both to Winterwood. And it would never be the same again...

It is 1958, and as Laika, the Sputnik dog, is launched into space, Golly Murray, the Cullymore barber's wife, finds herself oddly obsessing about the canine cosmonaut. Meanwhile, Fonsey "Teddy" O'Neill is returning, like the prodigal son, from overseas, with Brylcreem in his hair and a Cuban-heeled swagger to his step, having experienced his coming-of-age in Skegness, England. Father Augustus Hand is working on a bold new theatrical production for Easter, which he, for one, knows will put Cullymore on the map.

Now entering his 67th year, Chris McCool can confidently call himself a member of the Happy Club: he has an attractive and exceedingly accommodating Croatian girlfriend and has been told he bears more than a passing resemblance to Roger Moore. As he looks back on the glory days of his youth, he recalls the swinging 60s of rural Ireland: a decade in which the cool cats sang along to Lulu and drove around in Ford Cortinas, when swinging meant wearing velvet trousers and shirts with frills.

Francie vokser op i en lille irsk by i begyndelsen af 1960’erne. Som de fleste drenge er han optaget af fjernsynets helte, slik og hemmelige huler. Noget forandres dog, da drengen Philip Nugent kommer ind i hans liv. Philip fascinerer Francie med sin perfekte samling af tegneserier og sin fine nodetaske. Men Philips familie ser ned på Francie og hans ophav. De bryder sig hverken om hans fordrukne far eller hans deprimerede mor. De kalder dem en 'svinefamilie med svinemanerer' og langsomt forvandles Francies fascination af familien Nugent til had og misundelse.