A huge, shape-shifting epic from one of modern Ireland's greatest writers, Booker-shortlisted author Patrick McCabe
‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further … a stunningly lyrical novel’ Alex Preston, Observer
‘Pitched – deliriously – between high modernism and folk magic, between gorgeous free-verse and hilarious Irish vernacular, Poguemahone is a stunning achievement … profoundly affecting’ David Keenan
‘A blistering, brilliant ballad of mad tales from rural Ireland to London Town. The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy. McCabe is truly original’ Elaine Feeney
Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, is looking after his sister Una, now seventy and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate. From Dan’s anarchic account, we gradually piece together the story of the Fogarty family. How the parents are exiled from a small Irish village and end up living the hard immigrant life in England. How Dots, the mother, becomes a call girl in 1950s Soho. How a young and overweight Una finds herself living in a hippie squat in Kilburn in the early 1970s. How the squat appears to be haunted by vindictive ghosts who eat away at the sanity of all who live there.
And, finally, how all that survives now of those sex-and-drug-soaked times are Una’s unspooling memories as she sits outside in the Margate sunshine, and Dan himself, whose role in the story becomes stranger and more sinister.
Poguemahone is a huge, shape-shifting epic from one of modern Ireland's greatest writers. It is a wild, free-verse monologue, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale Patrick McCabe has never attempted before.
- ‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further … a stunningly lyrical novel’ Alex Preston, Observer
- ‘Pitched – deliriously – between high modernism and folk magic, between gorgeous free-verse and hilarious Irish vernacular, Poguemahone is a stunning achievement … profoundly affecting’ David Keenan
- ‘A blistering, brilliant ballad of mad tales from rural Ireland to London Town. The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy. McCabe is truly original’ Elaine Feeney
- ‘A tremendous pitch-black multi-layered epic. This exhilarating ride of madness, hauntings, lost weekends and fractured memory is a lyrical poem, novel, ballad and drama all in one … one of the most original literary works in recent times. I bloody loved it’ Adelle Stripe
- 'A difficult reading experience, to be sure, but a rich one, too, with a skin-pricking ambience that’s both gritty and ethereal' Daily Mail
- 'McCabe draws the reader into a rambling web replete with Gaelic folklore, IRA agitation, and a soundtrack of glam and progressive rock. Lively and ambitious in form, this admirably extends the range of McCabe’s career-long examination of familial and childhood trauma’ Publishers Weekly, US
- 'Patrick McCabe's hippie satire is like Flann O'Brien on drugs' Sean O'Brien, The Telegraph
- 'Modernist and eager to push the boundaries of his own art and the art form of the novel, here is a novelist and novel to celebrate in all their ribald, audacious, outrageous, and compelling brilliance'Paul Perry, Irish Sunday Independent
- 'The vernacular, drunken verse format may be daunting at first, but after a few pages the narrative develops a hypnotic rhythm, as if one is sitting on a barstool listening to the narrator unspool his story over a pint (or three). At this point, the reader has merely to hang on and enjoy the ride. A moving saga of youth, age, and memory—by turns achingly poetic, knowingly philosophical, and bitterly funny' Kirkus Reviews
- 'McCabe may be right when he claims that Poguemahone is his best book: it is startlingly original, moving, funny, frightening and beautiful’ The Guardian
- '“Poguemahone,” living up to its author’s reputation, is daring, studded with brilliance, raucous and exhausting. It might overstay its welcome, but you’ll remember its visit’ The New York Times
- ‘Like listening to a friend confess their life story after one too many pints, Poguemahone is a rustic and irreverent atragedy of tormented souls and macabre humour’Noah Katz, Hot Press
- ‘I warn you, like all good books, Poguemahone is a mind-altering drug’ BBC 4 Front Row
- 'There are plenty of outrageous stories, all delivered with unflagging flair, but prospective readers are advised to equip themselves like that cornered pub-goer: with a tall glass of whiskey at hand' Wall Street Journal
- 'Poguemahone is a stunning novel, one of those exceedingly rare books that deserve to be described as a masterpiece' Locus Magazine
- 'With few exceptions, the novel in verse doesn’t much appeal to today’s mainstream publishers, and this is not only because verse novels are often awful, but also because even the good ones rarely find a large audience. One can only hope Poguemahone attracts a readership beyond its crowdfunding backers on Unbound because, in its haunting strangeness and blazing originality, it deserves far more than a cult following' Times Literary Supplement
ISBN: 9781800181113
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
624 pages