Literature |
Historical Fiction |
Fiction |
9780385540308 |
Summary
Summary
A searing, surreal novel that blends 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 eleven years prior. Leaving behind domesticity, his approaching forties, his inability to create, and his memories of his parents, he sets off to calm his unquiet soul 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 elements to the most striking effect. It is a book that only Kevin Barry would attempt, let alone succeed in pulling off--a Hibernian high wire act of courage, nerve, and great beauty.
Author Notes
Kevin Barry was born in 1969 in Ireland. He is the author of two collections of short stories and the novel City of Bohane. He started out as a frelance journalist writing a column for the Irish Examiner. He soon focused all of his time on writing. In 2007 he won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for his short story collection There are Little Kingdoms. In 2011 he released his debut novel City of Bohane, which was followed in 2012 by the short story collection Dark Lies the Island. Barry won the International Dublin Literary Award for his novel City of Bohane in 2013. He also won the Goldsmiths Prize 2015 with his title Beatlebone.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Irish novelist Barry puts the striking brogue of his native accent to good use in the audio edition of his new book. The fictional story line, blending real-life events in pop music history with inventive fantasy and psychological introspection, centers on the late rock icon John Lennon's 1978 visit to the remote island off the western coast of Ireland that he purchased a decade earlier. Barry shines in his vocal renderings of both Lennon and the other principal character, Cornelius O'Grady, a gruff no-nonsense driver for hire who possesses shape-shifting abilities that he displays while leading Lennon on a mystical journey. The secondary characters-an assorted cast of local burned-out hippies and salt-of-the-earth villagers-also shine in Barry's vocal rendering, and Lennon even befriends a dog that he names after Beach Boy Brian Wilson. But the surreal plot elements are hard to follow in the audio edition, and the street-wise Lennon and his equally colorful companion certainly utter a great deal of harsh language. A Doubleday hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* All John Lennon wants is to be alone on the island he bought off the west coast of Ireland. That is the simple premise behind acclaimed Irish writer Barry's (Dark Lies the Island, 2013) singular new novel, in which he portrays the Lennon we know: acerbic, angry, confused, and, ultimately, lost. The only drama here is the remote chance that the Beatles-mad press may catch up with him; otherwise, the slim narrative consists of Lennon's painful ruminations and the dialogue between the singer and the people who are trying to get him to the elusive island of Dornish. Barry's Lennon displays a particular affection for a sad Beach Boys' song (Well, it's been building up inside of me / for oh, I don't know how long) as Lennon recalls his mother's premature death. Barry, a great poet of a novelist, devotes an entire chapter to this tale's backstory: how he succeeded in getting to Dornish. With echoes of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and The White Album, Barry has created an unusual novel, remarkable in structure as well as tone, that channels the contradictory nature of Lennon himself.--Sawyers, June Copyright 2015 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In May 1978, John Lennon attempts an escape to Dorinish, a remote island he owns off the coast of Mayo in western Ireland, where he hopes to spend three days rekindling his creativity. Pursued by paparazzi, Lennon entrusts his person and privacy to Cornelius O'Grady, who guarantees to deliver the mercurial genius to his isolated outpost without interference from the press and fans. Instead, O'Grady chaperones Lennon on an elliptical anabasis through the magical Mayo countryside. The artist eventually makes it to Dorinish, but only after spending one evening in a haunted rural pub and another at a commune of primal-scream therapy adherents. Along the way, Lennon resolves to record "beatlebone," a sonic and musical expression of his Irish odyssey. -VERDICT The best moments in Barry's second novel (which follows the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award-winning City of Bohane) happen when Lennon plays the straight man to the extraordinary O'Grady. An expository chapter describing Barry's own research journey for the book would have been a brilliant afterword but disrupts an otherwise extraordinary fiction that reads like a cross between Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Ciaran Carson's Shamrock Tea. [See Prepub Alert, 6/1/15.]-John G. -Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.