Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Hardcover)

~ Robert Mclaim Wilson (Author) "It was a late Friday night, six months ago, six months since Sarah had left..." (more)
Key Phrases: reach your arse, Eureka Street, Northern Ireland, Chuckie Lurgan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Romantic Ireland is definitely dead and gone. With the exhilarating Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson cheerfully and obscenely sends it to its grave. Jake Jackson, his thoughtful anti-hero, finds Belfast's tragedies are built on comedy: Catholics and Protestants so intent on declaring their differences "resembled no one now as much as they resembled each other…. That was what I liked about Belfast hatred. It was a lumbering hatred that could survive completely on the memories of things that never existed in the first place." He spends a certain amount of time worrying about seeming too Catholic and an equal amount worrying about not seeming sufficiently Catholic. Sometimes, after several drinks, Jake forgets that he's not a Protestant. Each position is as dangerous, and absurd, as the other. His best friend is less torn up. Chuckie Lurgan is a chubby Methodist whose only accomplishments so far have been shaking Reagan's hand, appearing in the same photo as the Pope, and having "an intense and troubling relationship with mail-order catalogues." But Chuckie suddenly surprises Jake with his first entrepreneurial scheme. Though he's placed an ad for an enormous sex toy in Northern Ireland's "only mucky paper," he hasn't any intention of ever fulfilling an order. Instead, he follows legal protocol and sends each disappointed customer a refund check, in the proper amount, stamped GIANT DILDO REFUND. The gamble is that most people will be too embarrassed to cash them. "Chuckie smiled the smile of the just-published poet." And soon he has more than 40,000 pounds in the bank and a lust for big money. He also has a rich, new girlfriend: "He hoped his dreams wouldn't suffer from all this reality."

Jake is more preoccupied with the day-to-day. His construction site job gives him ample opportunity to consider his romantic failures and the ever-present symbols of war. There's also a new graffito that has sprouted among the various deadly acronyms. IRA, UVF, and UDA make no more sense than OTG, but at least everyone knows what they stand for. OTG becomes a puzzle to all of Belfast--is it, the authorities wonder, a new terrorist group? (Jake also notes several other phrases, FTP, FTQ, and FTNP--the "T" stands for the and "P" and "Q" for Pope and Queen. The "N" is for Next.) Despite his love for Belfast, Jake loses heart with its zealots and fanatics and, halfway through, Eureka Street threatens to slide into windy bathos. It's only a momentary lapse amid energetic, colloquial poetry and comic realism.

From Library Journal

McLiam Wilson's interesting but uneven novel is set in modern-day Belfast and presents the day-to-day lives of Jake Jackson, a Catholic, and his longtime friend Chuckie Lurgan, a Protestant. The story focuses on expected Northern Ireland issues and on Chuckie's ludicrous yet successful get-rich-quick schemes. He seems continually amazed (as the reader will be) that his outrageous ideas actually work. McLiam Wilson writes in a comedic style with spare, realistic dialog and rich descriptions of Belfast and environs. Unfortunately, the story lines never fully develop, and the characters remain flat, especially the women, who are disturbingly one-dimensional. Moreover, the subplots seem disconnected from the main story. Still, the current wave of successful Irish writers may create demand for this title. Recommended for larger fiction collections.?Dianna Moeller, Saint Martin's Coll. Lib., Lacey, Wash.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (September 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559703962
• ISBN-13: 978-1559703963
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #431,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seattle Times, book page, Dec. 14, 1997, December 19, 1997

By A Customer

The working class neighborhoods of Belfast are central to Robert McLiam Wilson's new novel, Eureka Street. That's the name of the street where Chuckie, the Protestant protagonist, lives with his mother. The narrator is Chuckie's cynical Catholic friend Jake, who lives in Poetry Street, a name that hints at the book's ambition.

The story that unfolds as these two friends criss cross the city is both a funny enjoyable read and a serious political satire on the poisonous politics of Northern Ireland.

The prominence of the street names is significant, for the novel is partly a paean to Belfast and its people. In the middle, McLiam Wilson briefly pauses the plot to voice a lyrical ode to his hometown. In a typically daring piece of writing reminiscent of the style of the American Thomas Wolfe, he describes how, in the wee hours of the morning, he can sense Belfast's stories in the quiet of its streets, when "all the streets are poetry streets."

Yet if that sounds sentimental, the novel is not. Though written with love, the book is also a penetrating satirical portrait of his troubled birthplace.

While being "dead satirical," as Chuckie puts it, McLiam Wilson manages also to be very funny. He plays with the routine Belfast absurdities that have developed after almost thirty years of the "Troubles." One running joke refers to the litter of acronyms-used as shorthand for political parties, paramilitary groups, slogans, and curses-that covers the city's walls. His rich cast of characters conveys superbly the mordant comedy of Belfast conversation as Jake and Chuckie meet regularly with their friends Slat, Septic, and Donal. Then there is Aoirghe, the middle-class Irish Republican radical whose name sounds like a bad cough; Chuckie's mother Peggy, a typical working class martyr-mother who in the course of the novel achieves a surprising liberation; and Max, a beautiful American woman who inexplicably succumbs to Chuckie's approaches.

In the novel's second half social satire gives way to sharp political satire. Although he grew up a Catholic in the same part of Belfast as Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, McLiam Wilson has no time for the evasions of Irish Republican politics. In a disturbing chapter he confronts the realities of terrorism and the political fudging of those realities. The chapter is a pure set-up; a new character is introduced but one senses that she is going to be there only briefly.

The predictability of the tragedy that ensues does not detract from the passionate anger with which McLiam Wilson writes. Afterwards the author takes aim directly at Adams (called Eve in the book; no need for too much subtlety) and at his nationalist party, Sinn Fein. That party's name is usually translated as "Ourselves Alone." In a brilliant flight of satirical invention that may well catch on in Belfast pubs, McLiam Wilson plausibly translates it a shade differently, and lampoons Sinn Fein throughout the novel as the "Just Us" party.

To any young novelist Belfast presents a dramatic gift of a subject, but one that is liable to blow up when unwrapped. This is a city where real life holds more drama than fiction and objectivity is impossible; how to address the grim political violence is a consuming question.

In his brilliant first novel Ripley Bogle, McLiam Wilson had wisely used the Troubles only as background. In Eureka Street, he shows himself ready to face the subject squarely. He does so with notable courage and with a fire in his belly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chance wonder, September 20, 2002

By	Peter Olofsson (Ahus Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Paperback)

Never having even heard of McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street found its way to my hands. Although somewhat sceptical to begin with, I soon started to terrorise my wife with my finding: All of a sudden I found a book that 1) I cannot put down, 2) gives a hint of Belfast behind the screens, 3) makes me laugh loudly ("giant dildo refund" etc), 4) includes the fancapitalitastic personality of Chuckie Lurgan. This is arguably my favourite book for several years. Last but not least - OTG!!!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Funny and brutal, April 28, 2001

By	A. Campagnolo (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Paperback)

A very good story about contemporary Ireland and Belfast. There are all the ingredients to make it a various and pleasant book: love, politics, feelings, adventures and very peculiar characters.

The plot mainly follows the events happening to two friends. The first Chuckie is a protestant boy from the proletarian area of the city who turning thirty decides that it is time to earn some money. The second Jake is a Catholic boy about the same age of Chuckie, a very critic and direct character. His frankness probably is at the base of his difficulties in finding girls to date. Through the eyes of these two friends the reader is brought in a city pulsating with life but also with violence, terror and death. Many characters appear in different part of the novel and their lives, their hopes, their feelings, their past and present are so well described that they come to life in the reader's mind.

I can see a conceptual division of the plot in two parts. The first one ending with the beautiful description of Belfast by night contained in chapter 10 and the other starting with the terrible description of the seen of an explosion contained in the next chapter. The first part of the book is lighter while in the second part death, although not directly touching the main characters, hovers on the plot. The consequences of the political hate are shown in all their brutality and horror. The armed factions are described as mere rascals who paradoxically kill Irish people in order to free Ireland.

Throughout the story emerges a desire of peace, coming from the great majority of the people, well symbolised by the strong friendship between the Catholic Jake and the protestant Chuckie.