Killoyle: An Irish Farce [Paperback]

Roger Boylan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

Proving that the spirits of James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett still flow in the veins of at least one Irish writer, Roger Boylan has composed a novel filled with hilarity and doom about the inhabitants of the Irish town of Killoyle: Milo Rogers, a headwaiter and would-be poet with a bit of a drinking problem and a bit of a sexual one; Kathy Hickman, a writer for the woman's fashion magazine Glam, as well as a former pin-up girl; Wolfetone Grey, who reads books only by or about God, and who also makes anonymous phone calls through-out the town in order to make people believe, among other things, that they have just won the lottery; and a host of other peculiar folks, all suffering from and tortured by problems with God, sex, the drink, and of course Ireland. Accompanying all of this is a nameless figure who bursts on the scene in the form of acerbic, opinionated, hilarious footnotes that rudely comment upon the characters and numerous other subjects.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Back in its early days, one of the great joys of reading Spy magazine was wading through the funny footnotes printed in the margins. That same pleasure awaits in this hilarious Irish farce, a first novel that captures the absurdly comic spirits of Joyce and Beckett in its depiction of an Emerald Isle town peopled by some most peculiar folk, indeed. Wallowing in such gloomy, traditional Irish concerns as religious angst and too much booze, Boylan's wacky tale is deftly fleshed out with dense footnotes addressed directly to the reader?a clever technique that, in the hands of this skillful writer, helps provide for heaps of hearty laughter amid all the tears. You'll meet characters like would-be poet Milo Rogers and Wolfetone Grey, who makes anonymous phone calls exhorting people to believe in God. Highly recommended.?David Sowd, formerly with Stark Cty. Dist. Lib., Canton, Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

All of the Irish clich‚s--drink, religion, and more than a touch of blarney--strut their stuff in this satirical first novel that, mindful of the great native literary tradition, tries to amuse as well as dazzle. Set in Killoyle, a place as much obsessed with its growing relations with Europe as it once was with Britain, the story follows the lives of some of the town's finest citizens: Milo Rogers, the waiter and would-be poet; Patrick Murphy, the barman at Spudorgan Hall, the local hotel; Wolfetone Grey, in charge of the hotel's catering; Emmet Power, the hotel manager; Kathy Hickman, columnist for Glam, a women's magazine; Father Doyle, the parish priest; and Thomas ``the Greek'' Maher, a sleazy developer. As to be expected in farce, these lives intersect or connect in lively and improbable ways and, this being an Irish story, the humor is often rather dark. Lives and substance are wasted on alcohol, dreams are more vivid than reality, and real happiness seems at best unlikely. Plot is secondary to character, but there's enough to hold together a narrative obtrusively interrupted by jokey footnotes on almost every page. Among the events: The aging Father Doyle drinks to help him accept that he'll never revisit Rome, where he spent a happy year in his early priesthood; Maher schemes to increase his property holdings; Murphy is fired and becomes a terrorist; Milo is promoted, then begins a typically dilatory Irish courtship of the still lissome Kathy, who once posed for a British porn magazine; Wolfetone, obsessed with a religion whose adherents' names begin with G, goes mad; and Emmet Power and his wife find a pleasant billet running a Jesuit college in Italy. Poor Father Doyle, promised a post in Rome, dies before he can take it up. Despite the often strained humor, Boylan's debut succeeds as a work in which the telling is more important--and more beguiling- -than the tale. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; First Paperback edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564781453
• ISBN-13: 978-1564781451
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,882,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roger Boylan is an American writer who was raised in Ireland, France, and Switzerland and attended the University of Ulster and the University of Edinburgh. His novel "Killoyle" was published in 1997 by Dalkey Archive Press and has been reprinted four times. In 2003, a sequel, "The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad," was published by Grove Press, New York. German versions of both novels, translated by the award-winning German translator and author Harry Rowohlt, were critically and commercially successful. The third volume in the Killoyle trilogy, "The Maladjusted Terrorist," was published in Germany in 2006 and is forthcoming in English. The entire trilogy was reissued in German in 2007 by Kein & Aber, Zurich.

Boylan's latest novel, "The Adorations," in which a Swiss professor named Gustave, Adolf Hitler, Hitler's mistress, the Archangel Michael, and a journalistic sexpot meet at the intersection of history and fantasy, is forthcoming in its original English as well as in German translation.

Boylan's light-hearted memoir, "Run Like Blazes," has been published as a Kindle e-book and is now available on Amazon.com.

Boylan is a regular contributor to Boston Review's "New Fiction Forum" and the online automotive review Autosavant. His stories and articles have appeared in many journals and reviews, including The New York Times Book Review, The Literary Review, The Economist, The Texas Observer, The Austin American-Statesman, and Scrivener. He is working on a novel and a memoir. Currently he lives near Austin, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars no title, August 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Killoyle: An Irish Farce (Paperback)

Brava, Mr. Boylan! It has been a long time since I read a book that made me laugh out loud, not just a titter here and there but frequent and hearty chuckles, chortles, and out and out belly laughs. Even rarer is the book that engages both your chortling mechanism and your mind. Killoyle does both. Slapstick and sophisticated simultaneously.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars oh, the footnotes!, November 12, 2000

By 

Reader "piratebean" (Newport, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killoyle: An Irish Farce (Paperback)

Any book subtitled "An Irish Farce" is worth a thorough reading, and Killoyle was no disappointment. The story alternates between despair and hilarity - this is Ireland, after all - as it follows the lives of the inhabitants of Killoyle. Among many other folks, there is the aging editor of a glamour magazine, a waiter who is something of a poet, and the resident nutcase who likes making prank phone calls as much as he likes books by or about God. Of course, being a novel about Ireland, there are the requisite problems: drinking, sex, God, and Ireland itself.

The real genius of the novel is the footnotes, including gems like this one: "This round-buying will be the death of the Irish nation, you mark my words. Once I was conned into buying eleven rounds in the space of a single wet lunch, with no one else in the bar!" The persona of the footnotes provides comic relief, criticism, rude comments, and seemingly random filler throughout the text. However, from driving directions to snappy comebacks, the footnotes provide, as they should, the details that flesh out the story.

Besides being just plain fun to read, Killoyle is worth a look because Boylan rose to the challenge of doing something 'new' with the novel. I applaud him and his witty footnotes, and I highly recommend Killoyle if you are in the mood for a good yarn.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Irish Nabokov, March 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Killoyle: An Irish Farce (Paperback)

Killoyle is a book to be savored -- if you try to rush through it, I don't think you'll enjoy it. Roger Boylan's style demands a thoughtful, reflective pace of reading.

I think of Boylan as an Irish Nabokov. Like Nabokov, he is a virtuoso of language who apparently writes for the pure pleasure of doing so. And what fun he seems to have! His unpredictable, spontaneous flashes of merriment keep the reader entertained throughout.

I found the uniquely Irish charm of Killoyle so delightful that I have gone on an Irish literature binge since reading it: Joyce, Beckett, and Flann O'Brien. I can't thank Roger Boylan enough!