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Loading... City of Bohane (original 2011; edition 2011)by Kevin Barry (Author)
Work InformationCity of Bohane by Kevin Barry (2011)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Ulysses meets Clockwork Orange. Quite brilliant. In particular there is a scene where the newspaper editor meets the Gant and a child runner returns from Bohane with news of a gang feud that is hysterical and, at least for me, very reminiscent of Joyce. Not much to say, this book has been widely reviewed. I don't know how I feel about this book. I may change my rating tomorrow. I really don't know. update 16 November, 2017: when I first finished this book, I was struck by how little I cared about these characters, how their overwhelmingly negative aspects seemed to outweigh all positive wonder at how unique and interesting a book this is. Really, I'm sooo sick of gangsters. After thinking about it a while, I decided that the ending, as well as the premise and execution in general, deserve another star. At least. I'm still a little torn. In some ways, this book bucks expectations (in plot, as well as in generic tropes), but in other ways it seems to go the lazy way forward and that's what's still holding me back from giving it more stars. One thing that can be said for it is that it's got me thinking. A LOT. Update, 7 January, 2017: I'm writing an essay on this and looking through the book I ended up rereading the whole thing. I liked it more this time around. I liked the swirl of displacement and wonder that I went through trying to get my bearings in this gang-dominated post-apocalyptic coastal Irish city. I'm sure Irish readers would get more from the text than I did but I enjoyed the plunge into unfamiliar territory. By the end I was a little tired of the sartorial details (what economy supported all this fashion action?) and gang leader strategizing. It felt like it was heavily inspired by the 1928 book The Gangs of New York. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gangs_of_New_York_(book)) I read another book that included that work as a mainstay, Helprin's White Horse. A little disappointed by the changing of the guard at the end and the complete disappearance of one of our characters. I would be interested in reading something else by this author.
"On display, even more than the strutting characters' fashion sense, is the author's virtuosic writing: he has created a unique vernacular of Irish speech patterns mixed with Caribbean terms, delivered in a breathless, conversational style. This hybrid will be of interest both to fantasy and to literary fiction readers." AwardsDistinctions
Set 40 years in the future, the once great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is in terminal decline, with vice and tribal splits rife. Logan Hartnett, godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang has been in charge but his nemesis has arrived back in town, his henchmen are becoming ambitious, his wife wants him to give it all up and go straight and, he has his mother to contend with. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Bohane, a city in West coast Ireland, divided into four areas - Back Trace, Northside Rises (Norrie), Smoketown and New Town, with the Big Nothin’ as the rural beyond. Characters include:
• Logan Hartnett (aka the Albino, aka the Long Fella), from the Back Trace, the man of the moment in this mean city
• Gant Broderick, from the Big Nothin’, the gangster returning after twenty five years, whose heart has been hurt
• The Cusacks, from the Northside Rises, gunning for Hartnett
• Miss Jenni Ching, from Smoketown, playing the long game
Set in 2053-54, futuristic Irish noir - is that a thing? Barry makes it so.
It’s very seedy and very foul mouthed, with low down newsmen and middlemen moving the story forward through a year of changing allegiances. With language that sings in its newness but familiarity, and a future time that has degenerated from our own.
And it’s fun, with little conceits and jokes, such as Barry invoking the Norrie tower blocks in chapter 4: Got the MacNiece, the Kavanagh, the Heaney.
It’s just a good time story of the turning of the wheel, in the city Bohane. ( )