Author:Paul Durcan,Peter Robb
For most of us Christmas is the season of huge helpings of good food, good drink, and with luck, good cheer, as the rituals of cracker-pulling, present-giving and happy or sulphurous family reunions fizzle and bang through the long afternoon.
For anyone who has ever had too much of it, or felt out of it, or wanted to be out of it, or even succeeded in being out of it then been unexpectedly rescued by a good friend, this book-length poem contains a lifeline of humour and sanity in a world run seasonally mad.
It is a funny, subversive, melancholy, self-mocking conversation between two men - Paul and Frank - in the top storey flat of a Dublin apartment block; a Stations of Christmas under the influence of "woman-hunger". Once read, Christmas Day itself will never be the same again.
The volume also contains a second new work, "A Goose in the Frost", a tribute to Seamus Heaney on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.
[A]n intimate soul-searching, by turns painful and savagely funny
—— Dominic Cavendish , IndependentHe is a master of minor tragedies and melancholy, self-mocking humour... It is a beautiful, poignant and wry piece of writing. The firm yet hesitant friendship between these two men is the most genuine note of goodwill you could come across in a whole month of Christmases
—— Maggie O'Farrel , IndependentMelancholy yet achingly funny
—— ObserverLike all first-class comedians, he is deadly serious
—— Terry Eagleton , Stand'Heaven to read, and you'll laugh like hell'
—— Time Out'Not quite as sinister as the authors' photo'
—— The Times'Hilarious Pratchett magic tempered by Neil Gaiman's dark steely style; who could ask for a better combination?'
—— Fear'Good Omens is frequently hilarious, littered with funny footnotes and eccentric characters. It's also humane, intelligent, suspenseful, and fully equipped with a chorus of "Tibetans, Aliens, Americans, Atlanteans and other rare and strange creatures of the Last Days." If the end is near, Pratchett and Gaiman will take us there in style'
—— LocusMurakami's exquisitely simple prose and deft evocation of the surreal are captivating and sublime
—— Sunday TimesThe mysteries are never tainted by explanation, merely beautifully described, delivering a hypnotic read
—— Times Higher Education SupplementSuch is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility
—— GuardianVintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels
—— Los Angeles Times Book Review[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done
—— Baltimore SunMurakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing
—— Dazed and ConfusedCatches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed.
—— Times Literary Supplement[A] treat . . . Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done.
—— The Baltimore SunOne of the most poignant and evocative novels I have ever read
—— PalantinatePoignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates heartbreak and loss of faith
—— Sunday Times
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