- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First Edition edition (5 Jan 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747597561
- ISBN-13: 978-0747597568
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 817,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Holy City
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Review
'McCabe has made unreliable narrators his stock-in-trade, and they do not come much more unreliable than sexagenarian boulevardier Chris J. McCool Throw in a dashing Nigerian and small-town Ireland at its most incestuous and bigoted, and you have a typical McCabe cocktail: black comedy delivered with tongue-in-cheek effervescence' Mail on Sunday 'Few people can make an unreliable narrator and a vigorously scrambled time-scheme as compelling as McCabe can, and his story telling powers are in full flow in The Holy City' Guardian 'A hall of mirrors [McCool's] intensifying madness, religious and sexual confusion and mental deterioration are painful to read and cleverly drawn; real and imagined events are veiled with McCabe's engaging lyricism' The Times 'A masterly handling of the macabre sometimes that numb surface generates a brilliantly deadpan meeting of the eerie and the comic' Daily Telegraph
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Review
'McCabe has made unreliable narrators his stock-in-trade, and they do not come much more unreliable than sexagenarian boulevardier Chris J. McCool Throw in a dashing Nigerian and small-town Ireland at its most incestuous and bigoted, and you have a typical McCabe cocktail: black comedy delivered with tongue-in-cheek effervescence' Mail on Sunday 'Few people can make an unreliable narrator and a vigorously scrambled time-scheme as compelling as McCabe can, and his story telling powers are in full flow in The Holy City' Guardian 'A hall of mirrors [McCool's] intensifying madness, religious and sexual confusion and mental deterioration are painful to read and cleverly drawn; real and imagined events are veiled with McCabe's engaging lyricism' The Times 'A masterly handling of the macabre sometimes that numb surface generates a brilliantly deadpan meeting of the eerie and the comic' Daily Telegraph
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Patrick McCabe / In Safe Hands: The two fit together like an old fashioned jigsaw. Oh but not this time.
Yes, Holy City has the regular seam of gold running right through it:
The Old Ireland and its regeneration to gleaming new towns.
Sumptuous character descriptions and knowing names.
The protagonist, an insane killer in denial.
It's all there but it isn't. The story jumps from old to new so often that you literally 'lose the plot' and regrettably begin to 'not care'.
In McCabe's greats (The Butcher Boy, The Dead School), however dreadful the deeds and however great their downfall, the reader is irrevocably drawn into the characters lives in the blackest of comedies and at the finality of their story, feels wonderfully contented.
However, in The Holy City (even after to much searching) I could find in myself, no sympathy or interest. I read to the end as fast as possible, just to finish the book.
If you need a fix of new Patrick McCabe, buy last year's superlative, Winterwood - that plunges to fantastic new depths of evil, handled so well, you wont even shrug a guilty shiver.
Yes, Holy City has the regular seam of gold running right through it:
The Old Ireland and its regeneration to gleaming new towns.
Sumptuous character descriptions and knowing names.
The protagonist, an insane killer in denial.
It's all there but it isn't. The story jumps from old to new so often that you literally 'lose the plot' and regrettably begin to 'not care'.
In McCabe's greats (The Butcher Boy, The Dead School), however dreadful the deeds and however great their downfall, the reader is irrevocably drawn into the characters lives in the blackest of comedies and at the finality of their story, feels wonderfully contented.
However, in The Holy City (even after to much searching) I could find in myself, no sympathy or interest. I read to the end as fast as possible, just to finish the book.
If you need a fix of new Patrick McCabe, buy last year's superlative, Winterwood - that plunges to fantastic new depths of evil, handled so well, you wont even shrug a guilty shiver.
Format:Audio CD
I too discovered Patrick McCabe's brilliantly original and subtly witty prose through the excellent The Dead School, and the equally absorbing The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, however this novel left me totally cold, for the same reasons that Born Pretty cited. The problem is that the story lacks a coherent narrative; this may seem an odd thing to say as this is what McCabe specialises in, however with his previous novels this has been compensated by through the creation of fascinating characters and the way they fail to fit into their societies; sadly, for me, The Holy City does not have this.
Format:Hardcover
I started reading this book a few weeks ago, and I'm still only about quarter of the way through. I have to say, it's not interested me at all so far. I was going to carry on reading to see if it gets better, but after reading the other reviews I think I'll give up. It doesn't seem to be leading anywhere, and I'm not really sure what the plotline is anyway, even from reading the back several times. I really enjoyed the other books of McCabe's that I have read (The Butcher Boy, Breakfast On Pluto, The Dead School), so The Holy City hasn't put me off, but I wouldn't recommend this book as a first read.
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