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All Names Have Been Changed (Paperback)

by Claire Kilroy (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (7 May 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571242375
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571242375
  • Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 62,129 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Set in the Dublin of the mid 1980s - gripped by a heroin epidemic and light years from the post EU economic boom of today - "All Names Have Been Changed" tells the story of a small group of mature students on a writing course at Trinity, who become dangerously obsessed with their tutor, a notorious writer. Brilliantly exploring the shifting group dynamic, as events spiral ever further out of control, this is a novel of considerable verve and ambition. Following earlier forays into the worlds of art restoration and classical music, it is further evidence of a writer with a natural gift for narrative and atmosphere.


About the Author

Claire Kilroy's debut novel All Summer was described in the Times as 'compelling ... a thriller, a confession and a love story framed by a meditation on the arts', and was awarded the 2004 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Her second novel, Tenderwire was published to great acclaim in 2006, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Irish novel of the Year as well as the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Educated at Trinity College, she lives in Dublin.
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant change of direction, 25 Jun 2009
By Mia "Mia" (London) - See all my reviews
I really enjoyed Kilroy's first two books, and was expecting more of the same (literary thrillers) but "All Names" is quite different. I'm into literary and popular fiction, not so much thrillers (unless they're really well written) and so am delighted that my appreciation of this author's writing is so successful here without a mystery to follow.

It's literary, and not a thriller, and showed me that this author doesn't need the 'expectation' for the plot to develop that thriller writers use to keep you interested. It's a good, old fashioned, great story with great characters.

It's a very funny book, and uses echoes of Irish literature and culture well to set the scene for Glynn, the 'great Irish writer' on the streets of 80s Dublin (my original home). You know from the start you're not geared for a happy ending, but can't help falling for the slightly repulsive, self obsessed Glynn, who is a highly respected writer, but hadn't written much in the years preceding his current job teaching creative writing classes.

"All Names" manages to be grounded and realistic, whilst very satisfyingly ambitious with language.

Enjoy.
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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Original, vivid, and very readable, 11 May 2009
By Tommy (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews
Claire Kilroy has managed an impressive balancing act with this novel. It's a beautifully written book that rewards careful reading, full of nuanced and memorable characters, and saturated with a vivid atmosphere that lingers long after the final page. Yet it's also remarkably direct and digestible, and of all the novels I've read recently, it was the one I most looked forwards to returning to on a regular basis, which means I probably read it far too quickly! Its blend of gripping narrative, imaginative language and intense character study is very distinctive, and although it inevitably reminded me slightly of Claire Kilroy's previous novel Tenderwire (both books are laced with dark humour and complex interior states), All Names Have Been Changed is a refreshingly original piece of work.
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11 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars This really hasn't worked, 12 Jul 2009
By Mister Hobgoblin (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
I'm afraid All Names Have Been Changed is likely to be my biggest disappointment of the year. Claire Kilroy's two previous novels (All Summer and Tenderwire) were taut, intelligent crime based novels bursting with intrigue and character. All Names Have Been Changed is a departure, aiming pretty unambiguously for the Literary Fiction market, but falling short of the target.

The basic premise is a group of six students signing up for a course in creative writing with the great Irish writer, Patrick Glynn. Glynn himself is a parody of the drunken Irish writer, apparently an amalgam of various attributes and achievements of various Irish writers. The fun of the book, such as it is, is trying to identify which writer each factoid or quirk has been borrowed from.

And that, really, is as good as it gets. Because if Glynn's characterization is thin, that of the others is anorexic.

The story is told by Declan, a man who seems to be more fascinated by the four women in the group than he is by Glynn. Unfortunately, Declan is an outsider to the close knit group that the women form, and to which Glynn himself finds himself admitted. This puts Declan at some disadvantage, then, in conveying the different characters at play; the subtleties of the inter-relationships. Instead, all we see are single traits by which we are supposed to distinguish them (Guinevere is a Goth; Faye's husband beats her; Antonia is older; and Aisling is arty). However, the women tend to blur into one another and since there is no particular plot, none of them does anything more interesting than wander the streets of Dublin with a drunken writer. It scarcely matters that the women are so forgettable; they are not worth remembering.

This far, we have a book with little plot and little characterization. The killer blow; the icing on the cake; is that Declan, like the women, is an aspiring writer. Therefore he has to narrate in the style of an aspiring writer. Hence, we have 280 pages of turgid, overwritten, juvenile, pretentious prose. Apparently this is supposed to be humorous, and had it been a two or three page excerpt, it might have worked. But in practice, there is no difference between reading a novel written in the style of a bad writer and reading a novel that is actually written by a bad writer. And perhaps I might mention in passing that Claire Kilroy doesn't actually convince with her male voice. Each and every reference to Declan, or to Declan's masculinity, jars with a consistently female interior monologue.

Claire Kilroy is clearly a writer of some talent, based on past evidence. It is laudable that she didn't want to pigeonhole herself as a crime writer and aspired to produce something different. But unfortunately this really hasn't worked.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Academic Desolation
Quite a disappointment. I found this book dreary and depressing concerning a group of "mature" students attending a course of lectures given by a washed-up, alcoholic author. Read more
Published 4 months ago by P. F. Dinneen

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Last year I read and enjoyed Claire Kilroy's Tenderwire. On the strength of this, and primed by rave reviews in the newspapers, I snapped up `All Names Have Been Changed' when it... Read more
Published 5 months ago by black kat

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