Whatcha readin'?

Funny? Rollicking? Are you kidding me? This but was one the saddest things I’ve ever read. It supposed to be full of black humour, but I just thought the whole thing was incredibly heartfelt. It was gut wrenching not funny. What is funny about suicide and abortion and the utter desolation of broken people? What makes it all the more effective are the childlike fantasies of Joey Tallon. All he wanted was to be loved, and it was one thing he could never have. How bitter and cruel he writes the world to be. Are things as bad as all this? Jesus, I hope not.

I am left with the image of Mona shaking in the bar, racked with remorse over her abortion and shook with alcoholism, shovelling gin and tonics into her, trying to escape her own guilt, this ruin of a women, a woman who needs love and compassion more than anything else, and all she receives is laughter and derision of small town Ireland all the more horrifying for its authenticity. Mona chivers Jelly, on account of her shaking. That’s what they call her, and they laugh. Christ, that is dark as seven kinds of hell. And the critics call it rollicking? Hilarious? Are you f***ing joking me.

Great book, but so interminably dark. This one is going to stay with me for a while.


Five stars. McCabe is a genius.