Free book free-for-all: first, Killoyle Wine and Cheese

Hello. I am an American novelist of Irish extraction. My novels are "Killoyle," "The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad," "Killoyle Wine and Cheese," and "The Adorations," of which only the first two are available in the original English. They and the others fare better in German translation, a phenomenon I attribute in large part to a) the brilliance of my German translator, Harry Rowohlt, and b) the slackness and short-term idiocy of Stateside publishers and their minions.

Hence, my decision to use this blog as a means to making my work available to the public in carefully-sequenced segments. I will be starting shortly with the first part of "Killoyle Wine and Cheese," the third volume in the "Killoyle" trilogy. Subsequent parts will follow at regular intervals, say every two weeks. Ultimately, the entire novel will be available for all readers of this blog.

Meanwhile, here are excerpts from some reviews of "Killoyle" and "The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad," the first two volumes of the trilogy.

KILLOYLE:

"Killoyle ranks among the most impressive novels written by an American in recent years." Harvey Pekar, Austin Chronicle

"This is a virtuoso performance, filled with truly funny turns of phrase and event." Publishers Weekly

"Comparisons to James Joyce will come inevitably. . . . Boylan proves himself capable of spinning a fabulous yarn, as colorful as it is tangled." The Minnesota Daily

"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. Highly recommended." The Library Journal (starred review)

"Boylan's debut succeeds as a work in which the telling is more important--and more beguiling--than the tale." Kirkus Reviews

"Killoyle, An Irish Farce is a wonderful book following in [the] Anglo-Irish literary tradition. And like its Swiftian and Tristram Shandy forefathers, its characters all appear to be running low on luck, but the book is written with such humor and sympathy that their lives are a joy to participate in . . . Buy this book and read it." Literary Society Review

"I was hooked . . . Boylan writes with wit and a keen eye for the ridiculous." The Irish Emigrant

"To the people of Dalkey Archive Press, Roger Boylan's Killoyle must have looked like the work of Flann O'Brien resurrected in a world long gone PoMo." The Recorder

"A fine first novel, continuing the Dalkey tradition of publishing both Irish humorists and sundry members of the literary avant-garde." Cups: The Cafe Culture Magazine

THE GREAT PINT-PULLING OLYMPIAD

“Boylan's narrative resembles Joyce at his comically prolix best, with a similar appetite for vernacular nuance and pop allusion.” —The Village Voice

“You really feel yourself pulling for a rollicking Irish tale like The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad . . Boylan’s satiric follow-up to 1997’s Killoyle offers countless moments of lowbrow, lyrical mirth on the order of Roddy Doyle, Canadian satirist Robertson Davies or stories like Waking Ned Devine . . . Olympiad’s characters, having ‘stumbled a bit on the winding highway of life,’ leap off the page. You’ll really know their tendencies, fears and tastes . . . Boylan’s account of life in modern Ireland rings authentic, and his gifted ear (and pen) are self-evident.” —Austin American-Statesman

“Boylan is great with dialogue and tone, and has a keen understanding of how Irish people are—or aren't—finding the delicate balance between their old customs and their (relatively) new place as a, for lack of a better term, buzz country. . . [he] knows the territory of the changing Ireland in his bones, and he's adept at weaving it into his fiction.” —Dave Ferman, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Very highly recommended reading, The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad: A Mostly Irish Farce is a rollicking roller coaster of a novel by Roger Boylan and set in the days leading up to the Pint-Pulling Olympiad in the town of Killoyle, Ireland. A cross-dressing church sexton, a drunk who loses his job as a car tester and sues for wrongful termination, unemployment seminar hosts who sell missiles to the IRA on the side, and other memorable characters populate the pages of this engaging and topsy turvy tale with surprises hiding around every corner. ” —The Midwest Book Review

“Boylan both lampoons and pays homage to absurdist literary inspirations, including James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. . . . The book sparkles because of the author's antic wordplay, especially the running commentary addressed to the reader in a hilarious sequence of lengthy footnotes.” —The Library Journal

“A grand Irish entertainment: Roger Boylan explores life’s absurdities with incomparably extravagant wordplay.” —The Financial Times

“An extraordinary sequence of episodes . . . highly entertaining . . . Boylan has produced a novel which reads like a mixture of [Flann O'Brien] and Tom Sharpe, with the odd Joycean aside added for good measure.” —The Irish Emigrant

“Raise a glass to this Laurence Sterne of our day.” —BuchKritiken/Ultimo (Germany)


Stay tuned.