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Beatlebone by Kevin Barry - January 2016

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:03 pm
by Clare Bookclub Mod
A searing, surreal novel that bleeds fantasy and reality—and Beatles fandom—from one of literature's most striking contemporary voices, author of the international sensation City of Bohane.

It is 1978, and John Lennon has escaped New York City to try to find the island off the west coast of Ireland he bought nine years prior. Leaving behind domesticity, his approaching forties, his inability to create, and his memories of his parents, he sets off to find calm in the comfortable silence of isolation. But when he puts himself in the hands of a shape-shifting driver full of Irish charm and dark whimsy, what ensues can only be termed a magical mystery tour.

Beatlebone is a tour de force of language and literary imagination that marries the most improbable element to the most striking effect.

Reviews

"Casually lyrical, formally inventive, funny and moving, it is a small wonder" (THE SUNDAY TIMES)

"Gloriously freewheeling . . . a tale of fame, freaks, bad liquor and bad weather" (GUARDIAN)

"Books like this come along once in a generation" (NEW YORK TIMES)

"Superb . . . Beatlebone is a novel of necessary invention: profound, funny, hard to pin down" (IRISH TIMES)