City of Bohane
Kevin Barry
City of Bohane
Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and the eerie bogs of Big Nothin’ that the city really lives. For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there’s trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight... And then there's his mother.
4.3 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Science Fiction & Fantasy, General Fiction |
| Format |
Paperback |
| Pages |
288 |
| RRP |
£11.99 |
| Date of Publication |
March 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0224090575 |
| Publisher |
Jonathan Cape |
| |
Forty years in the future. The once-great city of Bohane on the west coast of Ireland is on its knees, infested by vice and split along tribal lines. There are the posh parts of town, but it is in the slums and backstreets of Smoketown, the tower blocks of the Northside Rises and the eerie bogs of Big Nothin’ that the city really lives. For years, the city has been in the cool grip of Logan Hartnett, the dapper godfather of the Hartnett Fancy gang. But there’s trouble in the air. They say his old nemesis is back in town; his trusted henchmen are getting ambitious; and his missus wants him to give it all up and go straight... And then there's his mother.
Reviews
The Financial Times
Carlo Gébler
"... hilarious and visceral ... It’s an extraordinary achievement and I don’t doubt this novel (which though written in words feels in texture and shape like a graphic novel to me) will deservedly win him many plaudits. I relished it."
08/04/2011
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The Scotsman
Tom Adair
"Barry often dispenses with pronouns, gets straight to the verbs, jabbing, punching, aping his characters - style and substance in cahoots - when he isn't wafting a lyrical rainbow, a breeze of poetry, mixing atmosphere and attitude, portent and mood. Heightened reality isn't a lofty enough description to catch its effect. The ending falls away in a whisper, surprisingly quiet, a time-share in artifice. It stuns you with its daring. But it works."
10/04/2011
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The Sunday Times
Anthony Cummins
"... slangy, plosive-packed prose is what makes the book a success. Its futuristic argot blends text-speak, Irish and science-fiction coinages ... Ethically minded quibblers may contend that the verbal bravura is put in the service of a moral universe that belongs to comic books and Hollywood."
17/04/2011
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The Guardian
Scarlett Thomas
"Kevin Barry is a great storyteller, and the twists and turns of City of Bohane are satisfying, if, in places, familiar (all gangland narratives seem compelled to have the same dreary combination of over-sentimentality and violence) ... Barry's vernacular, like his plot, is a wonderful blend of past, present and imagined future. He doesn't overdo it ... a writer of great promise."
14/05/2011
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The Daily Mail
Hephzibah Anderson
"There is an alluring swagger to this vivid first novel. Its distinctive voice blends hearthside storytelling with a more knowing literary sensibility, spiriting the reader away to Ireland some 40 years hence."
05/05/2011
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